The Morning Porch

On the steep slope below my parents… July 5, 2009

Dave Bonta July 5, 2009

On the steep slope below my parents’ house, a doe sweeps the deerflies from her twin fawns’ spotted backs with her long, rough tongue.

Dave Bonta July 4, 2009

Chipping sparrows feed a fledgling in the grass next to the wall, making much too much noise—even a deer would nosh on such a fine morsel.

Dave Bonta July 3, 2009

A low, leaden sky. Leaves blow backwards. A robin on a dead branch at the edge of the yard turns to face the woods.

Dave Bonta July 2, 2009

Sitting in great discomfort due to a sprained back, I regard a deer-stripped black raspberry cane, naked except for its thorns.

Dave Bonta July 1, 2009

Everything drips; I don’t notice that the rain has stopped until the sun comes out. A burst of song from phoebe, catbird and Carolina wren.

Dave Bonta June 30, 2009 1

Just inside the woods’ edge, three mushrooms weather the downpour, umbrellas for no one. The soaked bark of a maple turns patchy blue.

Dave Bonta June 29, 2009

Wood thrush, when you go back to Honduras, don’t just forage in the campo. Sing like you do here. Let them know how we mourn.

Dave Bonta June 28, 2009

The pasture rose in front of my wall bears two white blossoms: bindweed raising its flared trumpets to the white sky. The smell of rain.

Dave Bonta June 27, 2009

The red climbing rose is just coming into bloom, but it’s the garlic tops I’m admiring, those coiled green snakes with the heads of birds.

Dave Bonta June 26, 2009

Bright sunshine after a night of thunderstorms. Four deer—two does and two fawns—run through the steaming woods.

Dave Bonta June 25, 2009

Beside the springhouse, the twittering zoom of a hummingbird’s courtship dive: from sunlight into cattail shadows and back. Tanager song.

Dave Bonta June 24, 2009

Another cloudless, cool morning. Two large craneflies joined back-to-back like Dr. Doolittle’s pushmi-pullyu float sedately past.

Dave Bonta June 23, 2009

The catbird sails in and out of the lilac without interrupting his stream of song. Oak leaves glossy as mirrors; the sky so blue it hurts.

Dave Bonta June 22, 2009

Soft applause from the road bank: a doe’s ears flapping as she shakes her head to chase away the flies.