The Morning Porch

October 16, 2012 by Dave Bonta

From behind the springhouse, the opening notes of a song sparrow’s song, and a moment later, the closing notes of a white-throated sparrow.

January 15, 2025
A fresh scurf of snow on the porch. The trees with their moon-shadows stretching east like dark carpets rolled out for the rumored sun. All…
January 15, 2024
7F/-14C at dawn. The rifle-crack of a tree with ice in its heartwood. I peer like some ancient mummy through my layers of cloth.
January 15, 2023
Cold (20F/-7C) and clear. The half-moon is an ear cocked to the west, where sunrise spreads down the ridge like an orange rash.
January 15, 2021
An unfeasibly large number of chickadees foraging along the woods’ edge, calling, singing, dangling from black birch twigs like mutant fruit.
January 15, 2020
Slow winter dawn: light leaking through the trees. A Carolina wren’s molto vivace prompts his mate to respond in sforzando.