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Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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December 6, 2010

Dave Bonta December 6, 2010

Creak and rattle from the woods. A distant gunshot. Overhead, the shapely cumulus could almost be a summer sky, if it didn’t move so fast.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged cumulus, hunters

December 5, 2010

Dave Bonta December 5, 2010

That first snow still cloaks the frozen earth. When the wind dies, I can hear the 75 finches at my parents’ birdfeeder, a twittering bedlam.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged American goldfinch, house finch, snow, wind

December 4, 2010

Dave Bonta December 4, 2010 4

Snowflakes sail past like far-flung voyagers. On the otherwise lifeless tansy stalks, a green sprig harbors a single, yolk-colored bloom.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged snowflakes, tansy

December 3, 2010

Dave Bonta December 3, 2010 2

Tuesday’s rain still roars in the creek and gurgles under the yard. The moss garden has turned mountainous from an orogeny of ice.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged garden, moss, rain, stream

December 2, 2010

Dave Bonta December 2, 2010 5

A blaze-orange hunting coat floats through the snowy woods, out-of-place as a sign in the desert: burning bush, billboard, neon whorehouse.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged hunters, snow

December 1, 2010

Dave Bonta December 1, 2010

Just as I take my seat the sleet starts. Pellets the size of fish eyes lodge in the folds of my coat. The brown ground turns a glassy white.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged sleet

November 30, 2010

Dave Bonta November 30, 2010

A cold, wet morning that must test the hunters’ mettle. Over the rain, the rattle of the window-tapping cardinal clashing with her nemesis.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged cardinal, hunters, rain

November 29, 2010

Dave Bonta November 29, 2010 1

Blue overhead, and the frost so heavy, it looks like a light snow. From the barnyard, the voices of hunters returning with their first kill.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged frost, hunters

November 28, 2010

Dave Bonta November 28, 2010

I arrive on the porch at the same time as the sun: the first blazing quills top the ridge and a sneeze begins to prickle behind my nose.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged sunrise

November 27, 2010

Dave Bonta November 27, 2010

A scurf of snow in the north corner of the porch, and more flakes in the wind. A chickadee puffs out its feathers, fat as a baseball.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged chickadee, snowflakes

November 26, 2010

Dave Bonta November 26, 2010 6

Windy, with mottled gray and white clouds and a muddy yellow smudge for the sun, as in a fingerpainting. A siskin’s sharp-edged note.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged pine siskin

November 25, 2010

Dave Bonta November 25, 2010

Steady rain, and the temperature just two degrees above freezing. In the herb bed, the pale blue wheel of a blossom on the invasive myrtle.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged garden, myrtle, rain

November 24, 2010

Dave Bonta November 24, 2010 1

The sun peeks through windows of deep blue. I watch a crow flying silently from tree to tree as another crow follows, pecking and jeering.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged crows

November 23, 2010

Dave Bonta November 23, 2010

An inversion layer at daybreak: the high whine of tires on asphalt rings in my ear. The sky grows dark again, but it’s only a mizzle.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged I-99, rain

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On This Day

  • July 6, 2024
    Breezy and a bit less humid. A low buzz below the porch, where orange jewelweed attracts a ruby-throated hummingbird. A low rumble from my own…
  • July 6, 2023
    A still morning. A half-grown walnut lets go of its branch while I’m looking at it, prompting an odd feeling of guilt.
  • July 6, 2022
    Some unscheduled sunshine from a fissure in the clouds, while the breeze whispers of distant storms. I scratch a new itch to redness.
  • July 6, 2021
    In the growing heat, a wood pewee flies from perch to perch, singing, circling the house. I feel as if I’m being ensorcelled.
  • July 6, 2016
    Humid and cool. A nuthatch spirals up rather than down a walnut tree trunk, turning upside-down only when it finds something to eat.

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.

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

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