The Morning Porch

December 30, 2008

Dave Bonta December 30, 2008

Clear and cold at sunrise, with gusts of wind and a roaring up on the ridge. Chickadees like yard-sale shoppers darting from find to find.

Dave Bonta December 29, 2008

I love winter. I can rise late and it still feels early: clear sky, sun through the trees, the hollow rattle of a crow too angry to caw.

Dave Bonta December 28, 2008

Rainbow at sunrise in the mist above the half-red ridge. I race up the driveway in my pyjamas, only to find the camera’s batteries are dead.

Dave Bonta December 27, 2008

In the darkness and fog, the sound of slush being punctured and scraped aside. I can just make out the solid shadows, their many thin legs.

Dave Bonta December 26, 2008

A screech owl’s trill, the maniacal cry of a pileated—everything sounds like a portent when the sky’s such a lurid red behind the trees.

Dave Bonta December 25, 2008

The trees rock quietly in the dawn wind, ringed by shards of yesterday’s armor. Reflections of golden clouds glide across the icy driveway.

Dave Bonta December 24, 2008

Freezing rain. A black birch sapling suddenly bows its head. As the temperature climbs, branches begin to shed their heavy decorations.

Dave Bonta December 23, 2008

Juncos foraging in the snow. One flies up to the branch nearest to my chair and inches sideways, its down coat puffed out against the cold.

Dave Bonta December 22, 2008

Fast-moving windows of blue in a yellow sky. The trees creak as they sway—it’s 5°F. A good day for walking, a bad day for standing still.

Dave Bonta December 21, 2008

Snow whitening the lilac. And here come the cardinals to pose photogenically in the midst of it: loud and obvious red; subtle tan and ochre.

Dave Bonta December 20, 2008

The ice is all gone, but the cedar next to my side door still leans away from the house at a 30-degree angle, like a giant green erection.

Dave Bonta December 19, 2008

Sleet to rain to sleet to rain: the tapping on the roof above my head keeps changing pitch. Faint notes of chickadees, titmice, a nuthatch.

Dave Bonta December 18, 2008

For the first time in weeks, there’s a slow gurgle from where the stream starts. Highway noise. The gray sky is gravid with bad weather.

Dave Bonta December 17, 2008

Freezing rain on new slush—a metallic sound. In the driveway, the herringbone patterns of ATV tracks from last night’s pair of trespassers.