The Morning Porch

May 17, 2009 by Dave Bonta

A red-eyed vireo beside the porch with his back to the cold wind, neck feathers buffeted into a crest, singing in the weak sunlight.

May 16, 2009 by Dave Bonta

A phoebe hovers beside its nest under the springhouse eaves, then lands above it, bug still in beak, tail like a tapping foot: ah, marriage.

May 15, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Sun through fog. Animals emerge and vanish like actors in a play, bringing their cries and silences: goldfinches, a raven, a pair of deer.

May 14, 2009 by Dave Bonta

A pair of tanagers foraging in the rain. The scarlet male trails the drab female onto a branch two feet from the porch, returning my gaze.

May 13, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Two male indigo buntings, twice as blue as the sky, clash in the air and land on adjacent branches. One sings, the other flies off.

May 12, 2009 by Dave Bonta

April’s solitary vireo and brown thrasher have been replaced by red-eyed vireo and catbird—an adagio movement giving way to an allegro.

May 11, 2009 by Dave Bonta

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

May 10, 2009 by Dave Bonta

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.

May 9, 2009 by Dave Bonta

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

May 8, 2009 by Dave Bonta

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.

May 7, 2009 by Dave Bonta

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.

May 6, 2009 by Dave Bonta

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.

May 5, 2009 by Dave Bonta

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.

May 4, 2009 by Dave Bonta

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.