The Morning Porch

May 12, 2009

Dave Bonta May 12, 2009

April’s solitary vireo and brown thrasher have been replaced by red-eyed vireo and catbird—an adagio movement giving way to an allegro.

Dave Bonta May 11, 2009 1

Squabbling squirrels just in from the edge of the woods are almost invisible among the new leaves, except for a gray tail’s flicker.

Dave Bonta May 10, 2009

Backlit by the morning sun: new leaves, the wings of a vulture, my mother’s t-shirts flapping like irreverent prayer flags on the line.

Dave Bonta May 9, 2009

Glimpses of a tanager, a catbird, two goldfinches, and a hummingbird taking a shit. Each tree is still in possession of its own green.

Dave Bonta May 8, 2009

Up half the night watching the moon, I start the day by clearing a dead tree that collapsed onto the road, blocking the meter reader man.

Dave Bonta May 7, 2009 1

I breathe deeply each time the white lilac’s scent wafts across the yard. Behind it, through the half-leafed-out trees, shards of white sky.

Dave Bonta May 6, 2009

The gray winter pelts of two grazing deer are just beginning to fray. The fog withdraws into the woods and the webs of grass spiders.

Dave Bonta May 5, 2009

All these songs I haven’t heard for nine months—it’s like a recurring dream in which birds from the tropics suddenly show up in our woods.

Dave Bonta May 4, 2009

Every morning the green is a little more intense as May turns slowly into Will. Just audible over the rain, some distant motor’s steady hum.

Dave Bonta May 2, 2009

Male and female cardinal meet beak-to-beak in the middle of the driveway. He sings, she gives him a seed or bit of grit, and they fly off.

Dave Bonta May 1, 2009

Warm rain. The wood thrushes have returned to sing at the edge of the woods for another year. It’s almost possible to believe in redemption.

Dave Bonta April 30, 2009

When I stop to admire the red columbine in my garden, a female cardinal bursts from the cedar tree, her half-built nest inches from my ear.

Dave Bonta April 29, 2009

Does the cottontail rabbit remember winter when the bridal wreath bush it uses for cover again turns white?

Dave Bonta April 28, 2009

Sandals and shirtsleeves. The thin song of a black-throated green warbler. The oaks are blooming, and the air is full of insects.