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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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Dave Bonta

August 2, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Sunday morning rain is different; it’s quieter. The distant rumble I take at first for traffic on the interstate turns out to be thunder.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags I-99, mourning doves
August 1, 2012August 1, 2009 by Dave Bonta

I watch a yellow black walnut leaf flutter to the ground. Autumn’s in the air. Fog persists most of the morning, lit up from above.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fog
July 31, 2009 by Dave Bonta

A house wren ascends a stepladder in the steady rain. With a sudden crack, the cherry tree beside the porch sheds a dead branch.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags cherry tree, house wren
July 30, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Glory be to God for punctuation: the fawn’s spots glowing in the gloom, drifting insect-motes, garlic in the yard, a ten-second rain.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags deer 1 Comment
July 29, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Two years later, the branch still dangles upside-down above the forest floor. A hummingbird pauses over a tansy and taps it with her bill.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags ruby-throated hummingbird, tansy
July 28, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Scattered bird calls at dawn give the impression of a distant chorus, the way trees on a savanna blend into a false forest a half mile away.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags deer
July 27, 2009 by Dave Bonta

A chipmunk’s steady drip. How many years have I been sitting here? I remember each stage in the lichen’s conquest of the springhouse roof.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags chipmunks, lichen, springhouse
July 26, 2009 by Dave Bonta

The jesters’ caps on the topheading garlic have begun to split, revealing dense clusters of miniature selves. A raven’s mechanical laughter.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags raven, springhouse
July 25, 2009 by Dave Bonta

The misty sunrise puts me in a Hallmark mood: Roses are brown,/ violets, long dead./ This coffee is bitter/ and goes straight to my head.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags coffee, sunrise
July 24, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Soapwort, self-heal, mullein, Rudbeckia, butterfly weed: my garden exemplifies the messiness of any organization dominated by volunteers.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags butterfly weed, garden, mullein, Rudbeckia, self-heal, soapwort
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
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On This Day

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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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