Dave Bonta

January 24, 2009

Dave Bonta January 24, 2009

Treetops sway wildly at first light, squeaking and clattering. A rabbit zigzags across the yard, pausing at each dark patch of bare ground.

January 23, 2009

Dave Bonta January 23, 2009

A few hours above freezing yesterday, and the snowpack lost its ability to absorb sound. I sit in the dark listening to the roar of trucks.

January 22, 2009

Dave Bonta January 22, 2009

Fingers of sunlight stretch across the yard. The resident naturalist climbs the trail into the woods with the aid of a long thin stick.

January 21, 2009

Dave Bonta January 21, 2009

A gray squirrel sits motionless for several minutes on the topmost crook of a fallen limb. Then like a diver it plunges into the snow.

January 20, 2009

Dave Bonta January 20, 2009

Clear and cold at dawn, with a crescent moon tangled in the treetops. A tiny white prayer flag flutters from a branch: some vacant cocoon.

January 19, 2009

Dave Bonta January 19, 2009

With each new snowfall the ground grows more uniform, our footprints grow harder to read, and cries die quickly, as in a soundproofed room.

January 18, 2009

Dave Bonta January 18, 2009

A titmouse lands on a snowy branch and puffs out the white down on its breast. From above the spring, a chickadee’s two-note song: hey ho.

January 17, 2009

Dave Bonta January 17, 2009

Sparrow tracks in the thin snow under my chair: I see dandelion seeds on the wind. The house shivers all over when the furnace kicks on.

January 16, 2009

Dave Bonta January 16, 2009

Clear at sunrise, and so cold the mucous freezes in my nostrils. Trees pop at random intervals. A good day to be a black bear, fast asleep.

January 15, 2009

Dave Bonta January 15, 2009

Leaf-sized shards of snow sail out of the woods. The black cat wallows up to her chest, pausing every few steps to shake one of her legs.

January 14, 2009

Dave Bonta January 14, 2009

Bright moonlight, bitter cold. The wind has erased all footprints, and the creaking tree has changed its tune to a dry ah… ah… ah…

January 13, 2009

Dave Bonta January 13, 2009

Come crow and save us from a world without shadows, white as a motel towel, a rented room, the coats of orderlies in a home for the insane.

January 12, 2009

Dave Bonta January 12, 2009

The moon comes out, and there’s the rabbit, crouching next to the lilac. It races across the driveway and disappears into the cattails.

January 11, 2009

Dave Bonta January 11, 2009

Spots of blood in the snow at the woods’ edge. An odd, foot-long circumflex hangs in the top branches of the lilac like a snowy mustache.

The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow