The Morning Porch

December 3, 2008 by Dave Bonta

Out before dawn, I hear the crunch of boots up in the woods. It stops. All over the mountain, hunters are sitting silently in the trees.

December 2, 2008 by Dave Bonta

It doesn’t take a hard wind to get the trees talking, merely the right wind. A nuthatch’s nasal commentary. The whistling of doves’ wings.

December 1, 2008 by Dave Bonta

A half-hour before dawn, the stars begin to lose their luster—always a more melancholy thing than a sunset to me. The wind picks up.

November 30, 2008 by Dave Bonta

A slate-gray sky. From the birdfeeder up at my parents’ house, the sound of squabbling crowds, pushy as bargain shoppers ahead of the sleet.

November 29, 2008 by Dave Bonta

The snow gives them away—a crunch of footsteps, the unambiguous shapes: five turkeys 150 feet away, going single-file through the laurel.

November 28, 2008 by Dave Bonta

An hour before dawn, a deer-shaped shadow drifts out of the woods, apparitional against the snow, like the photographic negative of a ghost.

November 27, 2008 by Dave Bonta

That drum so low it sounds as if it’s in your head? A ruffed grouse, beating the air with its wings like one hand clapping. Or so they say.

November 26, 2012November 26, 2008 by Dave Bonta

Enough snow now to make the ground a blank page for the calligraphy of weeds and the meandering tracks of birds, the prints of their wings.

November 25, 2012November 25, 2008 by Dave Bonta

Two inches of fresh snow, and already the black cat is taking a shit in the middle of the driveway. Small pink clouds clutter up the sky.

November 24, 2008 by Dave Bonta

Mid-morning, and many of the feeder birds are sitting quietly in the treetops, silhouetted against the whitening sky. Bright smudge of sun.

November 23, 2008 by Dave Bonta

The moon inches upward through the trees with the earth’s glowing shadow between its horns. Two train whistles converge, one high, one low.

November 22, 2012November 22, 2008 by Dave Bonta

Snowflakes in the air: the small, light variety that fall at ten degrees below freezing. They drift sideways, glistening in the sun.

November 21, 2008 by Dave Bonta

Another half-inch of snow on the ground, on the porch, on the horizontal limbs at the forest edge: pale arms outstreched in the darkness.

November 20, 2012November 20, 2008 by Dave Bonta

Cold, gray, and windy, with a new half-inch of snow. The only flicker of warmth is a chickadee’s call—the pilot light in a stone-cold oven.