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Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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September 5, 2010

Dave Bonta September 5, 2010

A cloudless sunrise. The woods are full of soft chirps—migrants, I suppose. Up by the barn, a phoebe calls for the first time in weeks.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged phoebe

September 4, 2010

Dave Bonta September 4, 2010

Windy and cool at sunrise. A large squadron of geese comes low over the porch—non-migrant locals, no doubt, infected with restlessness.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged Canada geese

September 3, 2010

Dave Bonta September 3, 2010

High cumulonimbus drifting northward is the only sign of a hurricane’s distant churn. Tiny figures of birds head west toward the open sky.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged hurricane

September 2, 2010

Dave Bonta September 2, 2010 5

A steady clatter of acorns from a squirrel foraging in the crown of an oak. Could it be dropping them on purpose for later retrieval?

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged acorns, gray squirrel, oaks

September 1, 2010

Dave Bonta September 1, 2010

A goldfinch gone green lands among walnut leaves that have gone yellow. Below, a juvenile red-bellied woodpecker, nape turning orange.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged American goldfinch, black walnut, red-bellied woodpecker

August 31, 2010

Dave Bonta August 31, 2010

Three small flies gather on the top railing, wandering back and forth on the straight white road like lost commuters. Today will be hot.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged flies

August 30, 2010

Dave Bonta August 30, 2010

A gray squirrel nibbles on tansy leaves—how odd!—then comes onto the porch and stares at me from two feet away with dark unreadable eyes.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged gray squirrel, tansy

August 29, 2010

Dave Bonta August 29, 2010

As the plane fades in the distance, they return: a towhee, two lethargic vireos, a chipmunk’s water-drip-steady clucks, the garden cricket.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged chipmunks, crickets, garden, plane, red-eyed vireo, towhee

August 28, 2010

Dave Bonta August 28, 2010 1

Cloudless at sunrise except for my puffs of breath. A junco with bright new plumage flies out of the woods and veers past my face, chirping.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged juncos

August 27, 2010

Dave Bonta August 27, 2010

The sound of deer running through the woods, and from over the ridge, that highway whine: we race through the deserts of our own making.

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

August 26, 2010

Dave Bonta August 26, 2010

A lone cedar waxwing sits on the topmost branch of the dead elm, wheezing his high thin call as the sky’s deepest blue fades to daylight.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged cedar waxwing, elm

August 25, 2010

Dave Bonta August 25, 2010

Overcast and quiet except for a red-eyed vireo and a male goldfinch, whose head is already beginning to turn green, like rusting bronze.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged American goldfinch, red-eyed vireo

August 24, 2010

Dave Bonta August 24, 2010

In the rainy half-dark, a small white oval shifting and wobbling on the end of a branch: the breast of a hummingbird.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged ruby-throated hummingbird

August 23, 2010

Dave Bonta August 23, 2010 2

Windy and cool. One branch of the lilac shivers as a Carolina wren conducts a thorough investigation, ticking loudly after each new find.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged Carolina wren, lilac

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On This Day

  • October 18, 2024
    Dawn light with sparrow song. The full moon of my insomnia still glows above the western ridge as blood dries on the mousetrap under the…
  • October 18, 2023
    A flat white sky crossed by a crow. Woods’-edge chipmunks in a chipping contest. The color.
  • October 18, 2022
    A cold and windy dawn. The crescent moon drowns in a sorcery of pink.
  • October 18, 2021
    Sunrise. Fingers of orange light through orange leaves. After the furnace cycles off, the silence seems enormous.
  • October 18, 2020
    A squirrel on the porch spots a squirrel in the yard, who freezes. S/he walks slowly under my propped-up legs and down to a silent…

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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