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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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Dave Bonta

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
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
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On This Day

  • July 18, 2025
    Dawn. I wake a wren roosting above the door. The cardinal is already singing—and off in the distance, another cardinal responds. They seem in general agreement.
  • July 18, 2024
    Partly cloudy and cool. After yesterday evening’s brief rains, the happiness of the plants in my yard is nearly palpable. Formerly desiccated bergamot blossoms have swollen back into bloom.
  • July 18, 2023
    Dawn fog loud with noise from the interstate, thanks to an inversion layer: it’s chilly for July. I don a flannel shirt and soon find myself daydreaming about autumn.
  • July 18, 2022
    Fifteen hours of off-and-on rain and everything looks greener. The big red maple that just finished dying sheds a chunk of rotten wood.
  • July 18, 2016
    Two chipmunks eating unripe drupes high in a black cherry tree suspend their usual hostilities. One jumps over the other when they meet.

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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