Dave Bonta

June 6, 2009

Dave Bonta June 6, 2009

A mosquito lands her drilling rig on my wrist. Warblers whisper in the treetops. The first peony, beaded with rain, bowing to the blue sky.

June 5, 2009

Dave Bonta June 5, 2009

Towhee, robin, catbird, great-crested flycatcher: birdsongs sound more vivid in the rain, like jazz solos rising over a surf of applause.

June 4, 2009

Dave Bonta June 4, 2009

The black cat crouches at the edge of the meadow full of dame’s-rocket. What hides, squirmed into grassy burrows, under all that purple?

June 3, 2009

Dave Bonta June 3, 2009

Overcast and still. A soft thump up in the woods must be either a body or a piece of tree well into the slow fever of its afterlife.

June 2, 2009

Dave Bonta June 2, 2009

A passing shower. In the tall weeds of the old corral, the plaintive yelps of a wild turkey hen trying to keep track of her foraging chicks.

June 1, 2009

Dave Bonta June 1, 2009

I take advantage of the cold (36F) to destroy a yellow jacket nest above my head, crushing the queen and her paper castle with a sponge mop.

May 31, 2009

Dave Bonta May 31, 2009 1

A squirrel running on the roof above my head: the rhythm of hoofbeats in the paintings of horses from when they were still thought to bound.

May 30, 2009

Dave Bonta May 30, 2009

A chipmunk appears on the flat stone beside the porch and stares at me as I hum Shostokovich, its cheeks bulged wide as Dizzy Gillespie’s.

May 29, 2009

Dave Bonta May 29, 2009

After decades of segregation by color, the irises in my garden seem to have interbred: beside the porch, yellow petals with purple wings.

May 28, 2009

Dave Bonta May 28, 2009

Pale bones of the dead elm, standing at the edge of the yard like an emissary from Lent amidst a Mardi Gras of green, reach into fog.

May 27, 2009

Dave Bonta May 27, 2009

Fog. The ants who tend the peony buds have been replaced by drops of water—all but one, who moves slow as an astronaut on a strange planet.

May 26, 2009

Dave Bonta May 26, 2009

Soft taps from a burdock leaf under the drip line: it’s raining. A rose-breasted grosbeak drops into the springhouse marsh to get a drink.

May 25, 2009

Dave Bonta May 25, 2009

Heavy traffic on the driveway: a baby bunny races back and forth, followed by a strolling pair of catbirds and a robin’s methodical hop.

May 24, 2009

Dave Bonta May 24, 2009

For an hour now, the red-bellied woodpecker has been trilling almost non-stop: half yell, half peal. Fleabane blooms beside the sidewalk.

The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow