The Morning Porch

April 27, 2009

Dave Bonta April 27, 2009

An inversion layer brings traffic noise into the dawn chorus. Large gnats land on my arm. A squirrel sits on the head of the concrete dog.

Dave Bonta April 26, 2009

Sunrise. A white moth and a white butterfly flit between the cherry blossoms, and at the edge of the woods, the shadblow is in full bloom.

Dave Bonta April 25, 2009

Kitchen: wolf spider. Bathroom: silverfish. Dining room: millipede. And right above me on the porch, a gnatcatcher lands and sings.

Dave Bonta April 24, 2009

The bottom half of the porcupine-girdled cherry tree is in bloom; the top is lifeless. You’d think the news would travel from the ground up.

Dave Bonta April 23, 2009

A moment of sunlight illuminates the yard. Water seeps from the mountain’s every pore. The starling is doing its best to talk like a duck.

Dave Bonta April 22, 2009

Another cold morning. During a pause in the robin’s song, I can hear the spring peepers’ tireless ME ME ME ME ME down in the marsh.

Dave Bonta April 21, 2009

Crows mobbing an owl, the sun breaking through clouds, a field sparrow’s cup filling to the brim… April is still an unknown country to me.

Dave Bonta April 20, 2009

Hard rain with a bit of wind. But dreariness is impossible with so many variations on yellow: spicebush, forsythia, daffodils, pussy willow.

Dave Bonta April 19, 2009

Gray sky. Distant drumming of a grouse—so faint, it could be the mountain’s own heartbeat. A rabbit in the lilac scratches behind its ear.

Dave Bonta April 18, 2009

First morning without long johns: my legs feel like orphans in their tunnels of denim. The air is full of gnats and the gobbling of turkeys.

Dave Bonta April 17, 2009

Rattle and rasp from a hole in the eaves where the starlings are moving in. A pair of ravens low over the ridge. The sun’s blazing nest.

Dave Bonta April 16, 2009

An orange tabby appears at the side of the porch, and we stare at each other with alarm. Sun spreads through the treetops like an epidemic.

Dave Bonta April 15, 2009

Another cold and rainy morning. A white spot up in the woods is nothing but foam on a black birch trunk. How long until the shadbush bloom?

Dave Bonta April 14, 2009

Beside the rosette of mullein leaves like thumbless felt mittens beaded with rainwater, the feral cat pauses to yowl.