Skip to content

The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

  • About
  • Keyword index
  • Multimedia
  • Links
    • Via Negativa
    • Moving Poems
    • DaveBonta.com
    • Woodrat Photoblog
  • Home
  • Page 2

Tuesday May 03, 2022

Dave Bonta May 3, 2022 0

Overcast with a soundscape ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous: hermit thrush, tom turkey, a gnat mistaking my ear for a flower.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged gnats, hermit thrush, wild turkey

Monday May 02, 2022

Dave Bonta May 2, 2022 0

Sun through thinning fog—prismatic beads of water twinkling from every twig like the souls of dead leaves. It feels almost masochistic to turn my eyes to my book.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged fog, sunrise

Sunday May 01, 2022

Dave Bonta May 1, 2022 0

After insomnia, watching the rain come in and whatever brightness the morning might’ve had dwindling to just rose-breasted grosbeak song.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged rain, rose-breasted grosbeak

Saturday April 30, 2022

Dave Bonta April 30, 2022 0

Another cold, clear morning. As the sun moves off the lilac it illuminates a small witch hazel up in the woods—that pale green fire of new life.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged lilac, witch hazel

Friday April 29, 2022

Dave Bonta April 29, 2022 0

Sun through a thin milk of clouds. A lull in birdsong, punctuated by a didactic ovenbird and the rose-breasted grosbeak’s brilliant warble.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged clouds, ovenbird, rose-breasted grosbeak

Thursday April 28, 2022

Dave Bonta April 28, 2022 0

Five degrees below freezing. The lilac leaves are already big enough to show their backs to the wind. Four white narcissuses bob and sway.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged cold, lilad, narcissus, wind

Wednesday April 27, 2022

Dave Bonta April 27, 2022 0

Cloudy and cold. One of the local redtails is hunting along the woods’ edge, flying from branch to branch, head swiveling all about.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged clouds, red-tailed hawk

Tuesday April 26, 2022

Dave Bonta April 26, 2022 0

The tulip trees have burst their buds—a gray-green haze. Hermit thrush in my left ear, thunder in my right.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged hermit thrush, thunder, tulip tree

Monday April 25, 2022

Dave Bonta April 25, 2022 0

Sunlight softened by high-altitude haze. The hermit thrush is still around, dreamily singing up on the ridge, ignoring the boorish wren.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged Carolina wren, clouds, hermit thrush

Sunday April 24, 2022

Dave Bonta April 24, 2022 0

Cool beginning of a day forecast to be hot. The high, thin whistles of waxwings. A fantastically dissonant freight train horn.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged cedar waxwings, train

Saturday April 23, 2022

Dave Bonta April 23, 2022 0

A 30-second rain. I count nine shades of green, all circled by a cardinal in his flame-colored cap. The daffodils once again stand erect.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged cardinal, rain

Friday April 22, 2022

Dave Bonta April 22, 2022 0

Clear at dawn. A pale slice of moon in the treetops, and below, the ethereal song of a hermit thrush.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged hermit thrush, moon

Thursday April 21, 2022

Dave Bonta April 21, 2022 0

Heavily overcast. The patchy yellow of a goldfinch and the spicebush he sits in, grooming his breast feathers.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged American goldfinch, clouds

Wednesday April 20, 2022

Dave Bonta April 20, 2022 2

Birdcalls echo off an icy snowpack for maybe the last time this spring. Backlit by the sun, the lilac glows intensely green against the snow.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged lilac, snow

Posts navigation

← Previous 1 2 3 … 317 Next →

Primary Sidebar

On this date

    May 20, 2021

    Mid-morning and it’s already hot. The black locusts—last to leaf out—have a fresh green fuzz. A carpenter bee inspects the roof. …

    May 20, 2020

    Overcast and cool. The big tulip tree's few leaves not damaged by last week's frost still wave. Beyond the powerline, a wood thrush sings. …

    May 20, 2019

    A hen turkey going past the house catches sight of me and freezes. Nervous clucks, then the huge bird taking flight with surprising grace. …

    May 20, 2016

    The warmest morning in weeks. The bracken in my yard that the deer mowed down has raised defiant fists. A red-eyed vireo drones on and on. …

    May 20, 2015

    Cold and windy. Maple seeds spin down from the overcast sky, as if some psychotic cherub were plucking the wings from chitinous angels. …

    May 20, 2013

    A Juvenal's duskywing butterfly comes dancing out of the woods like a small brown leaf. Zigzag ripple in the grass where a chipmunk forages. …

    May 20, 2012

    Six nuthatches—parents and fledglings—scour the trees from top to bottom, soft calls communicating who knows what instructive tidbits. …

    May 20, 2011

    Each glaucous leaf of the bleeding-heart has rolled its rain into one fat bead. I'm wondering: where have all the wood thrushes gone? …

    May 20, 2010

    So clear, even the mourning dove sounds joyful. Muffled thuds of a pileated in a dead tree, knocking—as Rumi would say—from the inside. …

    May 20, 2009

    A new birdsong at sunrise: "Pleased pleased pleased to MEETcha!" Likewise, I mutter, trying to place the name. Ah—chestnut-sided warbler. …

    May 20, 2008

    A gray squirrel seems to be in heat: as in January, the slow-motion chases, the soft scold-calls, but now mostly hidden by the leaves. …

Follow via email

Other ways to follow

  • @morningporch on Twitter
  • RSS - entries
  • RSS - comments
  • Follow on Feedly

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.

Copyleft

Creative Commons License
All works on this site by Dave Bonta are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Header image

Detail from Paper Garden by Clive Hicks-Jenkins (used by permission)

Archives

Frequent topics

American goldfinch American robin black birch black walnut blue jays cardinal Carolina wren catbird cherry tree chickadee chipmunks clouds cold crows dawn deer downy woodpecker fall foliage fog frost garden gray squirrel I-99 juncos lilac moon oaks phoebe pileated woodpecker rain raven ruby-throated hummingbird snow snowflakes springhouse stream sunrise train trucks tufted titmouse tulip tree white-breasted nuthatch white-throated sparrow wind wood thrush

  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Flickr
  • Vimeo
  • RSS

Copyright © 2022 The Morning Porch. Powered by WordPress and Stargazer.