The Morning Porch

February 17, 2009

Dave Bonta February 17, 2009

Just past sunrise, the powerline is a tongue of light off through the woods. A heavy contrail drifts toward the sun like a deepening frown.

Dave Bonta February 16, 2009

The trees beyond the feeder are dotted with small birds watching every movement of the sharp-shinned hawk as it picks lice from its wings.

Dave Bonta February 15, 2009

A quarter-inch of snow makes the woods much whiter than it would’ve in December, before the leaf duff had been flattened by an icy iron.

Dave Bonta February 14, 2009

Quiet at mid-morning. The sun’s a faint smudge. I hear a caroling from inside the house: a friend calling to tell me it’s snowing there.

Dave Bonta February 13, 2009

Back to brown, except for the ribbon of snow left by the plow. The hungry cat creeping across the yard freezes at every rustle of the wind.

Dave Bonta February 12, 2009

Rain-dark trunks gyrate in the high winds. Branches rattle and clash. The trees are like sleepwalkers; I watch with my heart in my throat.

Dave Bonta February 11, 2009

Fog drifts through the woods where rain has reduced the snow to archipelagos. Overhead the clouds, too, are breaking up. Low-flying geese.

Dave Bonta February 10, 2009

I watch a porcupine waddling toward the porch in my camcorder’s small screen, how the spines move as its fat flesh jiggles. Rain on the way.

Dave Bonta February 9, 2009

A cloudless sunrise. Snow lingers on the west-facing hillside, hard and ugly as guilt. For the first time in months, a bluebird’s song.

Dave Bonta February 8, 2009

Warm and windy. I’ve been staring at the same dim star for five minutes now. The roaring on the ridge drowns out every other sound.

Dave Bonta February 7, 2009

Titmouse, screech owl, pileated: three ways to ululate. Orange-bellied clouds below the eaves which are festooned with dangleberries of ice.

Dave Bonta February 6, 2009

At dawn, watching one race across open ground from bush to bush, it hits me, why rabbits have been so scarce: the deer ate the briarpatches.

Dave Bonta February 5, 2009

1°F. A breeze feels as sharp as the studded rim of the sun rising through the trees. The call of a cardinal like an engine trying to start.

Dave Bonta February 4, 2009

At first light, some large animal crunching through the snowpack at the woods’ edge. It slows, stops. I wait for daybreak: nothing there.