The Morning Porch

April 30, 2009 by Dave Bonta

When I stop to admire the red columbine in my garden, a female cardinal bursts from the cedar tree, her half-built nest inches from my ear.

April 29, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Does the cottontail rabbit remember winter when the bridal wreath bush it uses for cover again turns white?

April 28, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Sandals and shirtsleeves. The thin song of a black-throated green warbler. The oaks are blooming, and the air is full of insects.

April 27, 2009 by Dave Bonta

An inversion layer brings traffic noise into the dawn chorus. Large gnats land on my arm. A squirrel sits on the head of the concrete dog.

Sunrise. A white moth and a white…

April 26, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Sunrise. A white moth and a white butterfly flit between the cherry blossoms, and at the edge of the woods, the shadblow is in full bloom.

April 25, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Kitchen: wolf spider. Bathroom: silverfish. Dining room: millipede. And right above me on the porch, a gnatcatcher lands and sings.

April 24, 2009 by Dave Bonta

The bottom half of the porcupine-girdled cherry tree is in bloom; the top is lifeless. You’d think the news would travel from the ground up.

April 23, 2009 by Dave Bonta

A moment of sunlight illuminates the yard. Water seeps from the mountain’s every pore. The starling is doing its best to talk like a duck.

April 22, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Another cold morning. During a pause in the robin’s song, I can hear the spring peepers’ tireless ME ME ME ME ME down in the marsh.

April 21, 2013April 21, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Crows mobbing an owl, the sun breaking through clouds, a field sparrow’s cup filling to the brim… April is still an unknown country to me.

April 20, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Hard rain with a bit of wind. But dreariness is impossible with so many variations on yellow: spicebush, forsythia, daffodils, pussy willow.

April 19, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Gray sky. Distant drumming of a grouse—so faint, it could be the mountain’s own heartbeat. A rabbit in the lilac scratches behind its ear.

April 18, 2009 by Dave Bonta

First morning without long johns: my legs feel like orphans in their tunnels of denim. The air is full of gnats and the gobbling of turkeys.

April 17, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Rattle and rasp from a hole in the eaves where the starlings are moving in. A pair of ravens low over the ridge. The sun’s blazing nest.