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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

The Morning Porch
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Dave Bonta

July 23, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Come hummingbird and bring some glitter to this damp gray morning, buzz around the bergamot, pizzazz at the beebalm’s one bedraggled bloom.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags beebalm, bergamot, ruby-throated hummingbird, wood thrush
July 22, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Gray and misty. A common yellowthroat keeps caroling back to a Carolina wren, until I have trouble remembering which “witchedy” is which.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags Carolina wren, common yellowthroat
July 21, 2009 by Dave Bonta

The tansy heads beside the porch have grown eyes: clear beads at the center of each dense sun. A faint haze of rain thickens into pelt.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags tansy
July 20, 2009 by Dave Bonta

A bluebird warbles in the darkness. Eyelids heavy with hours of missing sleep, I squint into the spreading stain of light.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bluebird
July 19, 2009 by Dave Bonta

A morning cold as autumn. At intervals, at the woods’ edge, a red-tailed hawk, orange light, the song of a wood thrush. Here and gone.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags wood thrush
July 18, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Half-burp, half-grunt, this utterance of a mother deer to her playful fawns. Twin leaves flutter to the ground like wings of a green bird.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags deer
July 17, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Gray sky, gray titmouse descending the gray ladder of dead elm branches, pausing to swipe its bill against each as if sharpening a blade.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags ruby-throated hummingbird, tufted titmouse
July 16, 2009 by Dave Bonta

The rabbit at the edge of the driveway seems unconcerned about my presence until a house wren starts up an alarmist propaganda campaign.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags cottontail
July 15, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Bluer than blue sky, a perfect morning, and all I hear is a robin tut-tutting and a Carolina wren going Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags American robin, Carolina wren
July 14, 2009 by Dave Bonta

The lone survivor of the yellow jacket holocaust under the porch floor two nights ago slowly circles my legs. My foot freezes in mid-tap.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags Carolina wren
July 13, 2009 by Dave Bonta

The doe with twins pauses to graze a multiflora rose. The lead fawn follows suit, and I want to cheer. Invasive-eating culture transmitted!

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags gray squirrel, multiflora rose
July 12, 2009 by Dave Bonta

High, deliberate notes of a blue-headed vireo: April revisited. A slow floodwater mosquito dies between the heels of my palms.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags blue-headed vireo, mosquito
July 11, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Pursued by its parent onto a dead branch, a vireo fledgling: smaller and paler, like a ghost who must be fed. The wide-eyed fleabane below.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow
July 10, 2009 by Dave Bonta

A wood thrush sings at dawn; the trees glow faintly pink. What is it about the 3rd-quarter moon that makes it look especially edible?

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags phoebe, wood thrush
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On This Day

  • January 14, 2025
    The deep cold has returned, bringing silence and a bitter wind. The just-past-full moon slips behind a cloud in the west and never returns. From…
  • January 14, 2024
    Snow at first light—a silent mob of moving shadows, pecks on my cheek—then as dawn approaches, the slow differentiation of black and swirling white.
  • January 14, 2023
    In the pre-dawn darkness, something is barking up on the ridge—a disconsolate sound, nearly inaudible over the bitter wind.
  • January 14, 2020
    Cold and gloomy. A raven alights on a squirrel nest at the top of an oak near the woods’ edge and settles in for a…
  • January 14, 2019
    Low sun on snow—even the shadows glitter. I’m feeling creaky, like the labored wingbeats of a dove starting up from the water.

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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