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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

The Morning Porch
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Dave Bonta

November 8, 2007 by Dave Bonta

Dawn finds the first snow — a faint dusting. It’s very still. Down in the pines, a screech owl quavers. The slow footfalls of a deer.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags deer, screech owl
October 26, 2025November 7, 2007 by Dave Bonta

From 6:00 to 6:30, it’s quiet except for the distant whine of truck tires and the wind in the treetops, more rattle than rustle now.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags I-99, trucks
November 6, 2007 by Dave Bonta

Wind and rain have stripped the birches and maples at the edge of the woods. A gray squirrel leaps through the bare branches.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags gray squirrel
November 5, 2007 by Dave Bonta

Venus and the fourth-quarter moon stand close together, shining through the treetops as I drink my coffee.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags coffee, Venus 1 Comment
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On This Day

  • March 22, 2025
    Patches of blue, and a pair of hawks arrowing north silhouetted against the clouds. An inversion layer brings traffic noise from over the ridge, but…
  • March 22, 2024
    Cold and still. The rising sun shines straight down the old woods road to illuminate the whitewashed springhouse, just three days past the equinox.
  • March 22, 2023
    Cold and gray. Up in the corner of the field, a tom turkey raises and lowers the dark banner of his tail, gobbling at his…
  • March 22, 2022
    Weak sun through thickening clouds. A robin and his echo. The metallic taps of a titmouse opening a sunflower seed against a drainpipe.
  • March 22, 2021
    Sunrise. I watch the trees grow shadows and pelts of sunlight. Anyone rooted can become a gnomon: from the Greek, an expert or interpreter.

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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