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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

The Morning Porch
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barn

November 25, 2017 by Dave Bonta

High clouds move slowly in the wrong direction; the sun goes from blear to smear. Up by the barn, a large agitation of chickadees.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags barn, black-capped chickadee, clouds
April 5, 2013 by Dave Bonta

The phoebe sings lustily for the first time in days, hawking flies on the sunny side of the barn. Bits of cattail down rise from the marsh.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags barn, cattails, phoebe
October 17, 2011 by Dave Bonta

The spicy smell of moldering leaves. On the barn roof, the shadow of a blue jay lands on the shadow of a limb.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags barn, blue jays 3 Comments

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On This Day

  • October 9, 2025
    Cold, clear, and quiet except for the crow in the road when I came out, who took several, labored wingbeats to reach his high-pitched cry.
  • October 9, 2024
    Clear and still cold at mid-morning. Sunlight flashes through thinning leaves shuffled by the wind, the sun’s own color more a yell than a yellow.
  • October 9, 2023
    An hour before dawn, the crescent moon hangs just above the ridge, with Venus blazing like a campfire through the trees. It’s cold. An inversion layer brings the sound of every engine waking in the valley.
  • October 9, 2022
    One degree above freezing at sunrise. A breeze reshuffles the walnut leaves on the porch. I find small patches of frost up by the barn.
  • October 9, 2021
    Fifteen minutes after sunrise, the sky darkens again. The fierce yet querulous cries of a Cooper’s hawk skimming the treetops.

See all...

Related book

Cover of Ice Mountain with a linocut of a big ridgetop tree.

What I do after I sit on the porch. One winter and spring's daily walks distilled into short poems with linocut illustrations by Beth Adams.

Header image: detail from Paper Garden by Clive Hicks-Jenkins (used by permission)

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