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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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September 23, 2008

Dave Bonta September 23, 2008

Another gray morning. High against the clouds, a pair of ravens exchange triple croaks. The chipmunk in the garden scratches behind one ear.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged chipmunks, garden, raven

September 22, 2008

Dave Bonta September 22, 2008

Equinox. A flat-white sky, and for the first time I notice two maple trees at the woods’ edge already half infiltrated by orange, by red.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow

September 21, 2008

Dave Bonta September 21, 2008

In the pre-dawn, Sunday-morning silence, the distant bellowing of a cow. A half moon glows through the fog — a thin milk.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged cows, fog

September 20, 2008

Dave Bonta September 20, 2008

A gray, cold morning. The rusty-hinge scolding of a squirrel multiplies and turns into a flock of grackles, pivoting on its thousand wings.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged common grackle, gray squirrel

September 19, 2008

Dave Bonta September 19, 2008

Gold is spreading from the goldenrod up into the trees, here and there: walnut, elm, birch. A jay dives into the lilac: blue from the sky.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged goldenrod, lilac

September 18, 2008

Dave Bonta September 18, 2008

In the pre-dawn dark, a patch of moonlight appears for a few seconds on the end of the porch. A cricket’s one-string fiddle, slow and thin.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged crickets

September 17, 2008

Dave Bonta September 17, 2008

Clear, cold, the kind of morning where you can hear for miles, noisy with cars, trucks, trains, jets, and chipmunks standing their ground.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged chipmunks, trucks

September 16, 2008

Dave Bonta September 16, 2008

Up too early, I sit out front and watch the full moon moving in and out of thin clouds: moments of clarity interspersed with bleariness.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow

September 15, 2008

Dave Bonta September 15, 2008

Where daffodils bloomed in April, goldenrod sways—a more worldly yellow. The distant hurricane makes a roosting monarch flap its wings.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged daffodils, goldenrod, hurricane, monarch butterfly

September 14, 2008

Dave Bonta September 14, 2008

Pulling rampant stiltgrass out of the garden next to the porch to create a spot for a potted yellow mum, I uncover the jawbone of a horse.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged garden

September 13, 2008

Dave Bonta September 13, 2008

If this were my first dawn here, I might startle at the white faces in the darkness: snakeroot. The familiar cries of a bird I cannot name.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow

September 12, 2008

Dave Bonta September 12, 2008

A warm night. With no inversion layer, dawn comes quietly except for the ever-present crickets. A patter of rain approaches and retreats.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged crickets

September 11, 2008

Dave Bonta September 11, 2008

5:30. The black cat is only distinguishable by its movement up the driveway, and only if I focus a little to the side. The sound of engines.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow

September 10, 2008

Dave Bonta September 10, 2008

Clear, cold. The flare of a satellite is an omen: the sun will rise. CERN has so far failed to birth a black hole. Random chirps.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow

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On This Day

  • June 21, 2024
    A hazy sunrise for the first full day of astronomical summer. The feral garlics are raising crane’s-bill heads.
  • June 21, 2023
    The sun rising through high-altitude murk isn’t much brighter than the goldfinches chattering in the treetops, less than three hours till the solstice.
  • June 21, 2022
    One gray squirrel shadows another, nose to tail, down the gray driveway. Mid-morning thunder. A patter of rain.
  • June 21, 2021
    Hot and humid. A silver-spotted skipper draws my eye to a bindweed trumpet, its silent hosannas seemingly aimed at the ancient rose bush.
  • June 21, 2020
    A butterfly’s erratic flight-path is the main thing distinguishing it from the odd falling leaf in this humid air saturated with birdsong.

See all...

Related book

Cover of Ice Mountain with a linocut of a big ridgetop tree.

What I do after I sit on the porch. One winter and spring's daily walks distilled into short poems with linocut illustrations by Beth Adams.

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Detail from Paper Garden by Clive Hicks-Jenkins (used by permission)

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