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Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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November 9, 2017 by Dave Bonta

Cloudy and cold. The quiet tapping of a downy woodpecker. A deer hunter appears, his bloody quarry sliding behind him on the fallen leaves.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags deer, downy woodpecker, hunters
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On This Day

  • December 14, 2024
    Up with the sun, facing each other across 93 million miles of silence. It’s cold. I close my eyes for the brief afterimage: stark branches…
  • December 14, 2023
    Waiting for the sun at -8C. It’s clear and quiet, except for a squirrel rummaging through frosted leaves, climbing up to a low limb and…
  • December 14, 2021
    A Carolina wren heralds the dawn from atop the springhouse roof, his mate counter-singing—as ornithologists call her answering Shhhhhh!
  • December 14, 2020
    It’s snowing: fine flakes wet enough to cling to the smallest twigs and give each bergamot stalk a tall white hat. Juncos twitter hosannas.
  • December 14, 2019
    Rain and fog. Gray-green lichen glows on tree trunks in the woods and on every twisted branch of the old crabapple beside the springhouse.

See all...

Related book

Cover of Ice Mountain with a linocut of a big ridgetop tree.

What I do after I sit on the porch. One winter and spring's daily walks distilled into short poems with linocut illustrations by Beth Adams.

Header image: detail from Paper Garden by Clive Hicks-Jenkins (used by permission)

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