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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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bees

July 23, 2021 by Dave Bonta

A large native bee lands on a porch column to groom her antennae. A black ant races back and forth brandishing a dead ant like a flag.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags ants, bees
September 15, 2017 by Dave Bonta

The corpse of a bee hangs six feet above the garden, swaddled in webbing. Inside its fence, the amelanchier sprout is starting to redden.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bees, shadbush, spiderwebs 1 Comment
August 29, 2014 by Dave Bonta

In the shadows of the trees, the grass bent low by dew. From the sunlit meadow, the drone of cold-hardy bumblebees servicing the goldenrod.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bees, bumblebees, dew, goldenrod 1 Comment
August 24, 2014 by Dave Bonta

A large spider rappels sideways across the yard on an invisible thread, while a bee struggles to maintain its balance on the porch rail.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bees, spiders 1 Comment
April 28, 2014 by Dave Bonta

On the myrtle flowers, nothing but native bees. The sun fades. A black-throated green warbler calls, switching between its two buzzy songs.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bees, black-throated green warbler, myrtle

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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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