The Morning Porch

January 12, 2009

Dave Bonta January 12, 2009

The moon comes out, and there’s the rabbit, crouching next to the lilac. It races across the driveway and disappears into the cattails.

Dave Bonta January 11, 2009

Spots of blood in the snow at the woods’ edge. An odd, foot-long circumflex hangs in the top branches of the lilac like a snowy mustache.

Dave Bonta January 10, 2009

Falling snow so fine it lends little more than a shimmer to the air, like heat waves above a summer street except for the downward drift.

Dave Bonta January 9, 2009

At first light, a rare glimpse of a rabbit below the porch. I can hear the ice shattering as it chews on a clump of dead brome grass.

Dave Bonta January 8, 2009

A skim of snow on the ice: dangerous magic. Branches rattle in the wind, and there’s a new, nearly constant creak. The white sky brightens.

Dave Bonta January 7, 2009

From the other house, the sound of an unfed avian mob. Four goldfinches land in the ice-covered tree in front of me and cock their heads.

Dave Bonta January 6, 2009

Overcast and still, apart from the nasal calls of nuthatches. The few remaining spots of snow resemble nothing so much as blotches of mold.

Dave Bonta January 5, 2009

Long before daylight you can hear it coming, this first Monday after New Year’s, loud with the whine of truck tires on the interstate.

Dave Bonta January 4, 2009

So quiet, I could be in the middle of nowhere: nothing but the slow trickle of the stream and the gurgling of my belly. A few faint stars.

Dave Bonta January 3, 2009

Too dark yet to tell if the sky is overcast or clear. Wind soughing in the pines. The rapid footsteps of a leaf skittering up the driveway.

Dave Bonta January 2, 2009

Leaden sky. The loud whisper of a jet. Squirrels scuttle through the white fur on the leaf litter, searching for memories of buried nuts.

Dave Bonta January 1, 2009

The New Year so far is clear and quiet. Up past the old garden, a pileated woodpecker drums high then low, switching from branch to branch.

Dave Bonta December 31, 2008

A fresh half-inch of snow is enough to give shape to banshees towering into the treetops, which whip back and forth, shedding dead limbs.

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.