banjo – The Morning Porch

September 12, 2025August 6, 2010 by Dave Bonta

A wood pewee snaps an insect out of the air, lands and sings, his mournful notes the only thing audible over my uncle’s banjo.

January 31, 2010 by Dave Bonta

Walking naked through the cold house at dawn, I’m startled by a bright light among the trees on the western ridge: the moon, big as a banjo.

October 15, 2008 by Dave Bonta

A winter wren’s wandering burble from above the dry creek. A visitor brings out his old-time banjo and tunes it with an electronic tuner.

October 21, 2025
Dawn turns the western ridge orange, as the roar of traffic from an inversion layer nearly drowns out the waking songbirds—all but the Carolina wren, whose teakettle teakettle teakettle is never quiet.
October 21, 2024
Wind rustling through fallen leaves in the moonlight. When it stops, I can hear the careful footsteps of a deer.
October 21, 2023
In the half-light, a patter of hooves from just inside the woods. The grunts of a buck in rut. A dawn sky coming through the trees.
October 21, 2022
Two degrees below freezing and clear at sunrise. A falling tulip tree leaf lands with an audible tick.
October 21, 2021
The last clear morning for a while. A red-tailed hawk flies through the bare birches, trailed by two outraged crows.