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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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barred owl

September 17, 2017 by Dave Bonta

Out early, I listen to barred owls, watch the pulsing light of a glowworm crossing the walk like a satellite on an exceptionally low orbit.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags barred owl, glowworms 1 Comment
January 15, 2017 by Dave Bonta

A barred owl calls in the bright sun. Snow meltwater starts dripping onto the porch roof—a simple rhythm that grows increasingly complex.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags barred owl, snow
January 3, 2017 by Dave Bonta

Steady rain. Two drenched birders walk up the road, towels draped over their binoculars, and tell me they’d managed to flush a barred owl.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags barred owl, Christmas bird count, rain
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On This Day

  • January 9, 2025
    Trees creak and clatter in the growing light. Somewhere nearby, freezing sap is trapped and the heartwood bursts, loud as a rifle shot.
  • January 9, 2024
    Snow falling so fast at sunrise you can hear it: a sort of high soughing as millions of special snowflakes hurtle into the oblivion of…
  • January 9, 2023
    The ground is white again. Bright spots in the clouds that could be moon or dawn. The deep breathing of the pines.
  • January 9, 2021
    Clear and still. The tree’s long shadows stripe the white hillside like a zebra. Below the porch, a cat’s footprints.
  • January 9, 2020
    Cold and still. Mares’ tails running north-south slowly soften into wool. Fresh tire tracks on the road. A crow’s distant note of protest.

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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