The Morning Porch

December 12, 2008 by Dave Bonta

The world’s white again: even with the wind, a thin coating of snow sticks to every icy surface. Juncos flit through clattering branches.

December 11, 2008 by Dave Bonta

Rain. The snow’s almost gone, but the forest floor has been altered: no longer scruffy and mammalian, but sleek as a red-backed salamander.

December 10, 2008 by Dave Bonta

Rain and fog. Only the low rumbly sounds break through: a jet, a train. Sitting in the dark, it’s almost possible to believe in isolation.

December 9, 2008 by Dave Bonta

How the acoustics vary from one morning to the next! Yesterday, the hollow was a soundproofed room; today it’s as echoey as a concert hall.

December 8, 2008 by Dave Bonta

Cloudy and cold, but the chickadees, titmice, juncos and finches are carrying on as if they were seeing these trees for the very first time.

December 7, 2008 by Dave Bonta

I come out during a snow squall and am quickly camouflaged in white. Twenty minutes later, the sky is blue and I’m squinting into the sun.

December 6, 2008 by Dave Bonta

It’s cold—the porch floorboards pop when I come out—and still as a tomb. The distant calls of a female great-horned owl go unanswered.

December 5, 2008 by Dave Bonta

Juncos gather on the gravel driveway, replenishing their gizzards with grit. Up and down the big maple, it’s squirrel kabuki, love and war.

December 4, 2008 by Dave Bonta

Patter of rain from a leaden sky. Mouth-shaped wounds on the cherry tree where the porcupine chewed it—by far the brightest spots of color.

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.