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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

The Morning Porch
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bats

July 22, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Chimney swifts circle high overhead as the last bats head home. The sun rising through small clouds is crowned by dark spokes.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bats, chimney swifts, sunrise
November 4, 2021 by Dave Bonta

25F degrees at dawn. A bat flies low over the meadow as the white-throated sparrows tune up. Frost-encrusted blades of grass seem to glow.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bats, cold, dawn, frost, white-throated sparrow
August 12, 2021 by Dave Bonta

Dawn. A bat zig-zags high over the meadow en route to its roost as the few clouds turn pink.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bats, clouds, dawn

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On This Day

  • September 5, 2025
    Inside a white whale of fog, the trees drip and drop yellow leaves, and the sun is felt more than seen, with a faint wash of blue beyond.
  • September 5, 2024
    A dawn too cold for crickets, and still except where a squirrel makes a branch tremble. From the top of a black locust, a hairy woodpecker’s nasal chirps.
  • September 5, 2023
    Through a hole in the forest canopy, a ray of sun illuminates one tall goldenrod in the springhouse meadow. An indescribably sweet odor of ripeness and rich earth.
  • September 5, 2022
    Rain prolongs the early-morning light till well past 10:00. A chipmunk appears in the garden, bustling among the drenched weeds.
  • September 5, 2021
    Rain easing off by mid-morning. At one end of the lilac, I spot some dark leaves: buckthorn, I think, grown 10 feet tall without my noticing.

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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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