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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 18, 2025
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  • January 18, 2024
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  • January 18, 2022
    Windy and overcast at moonset, at dawn. Just when I’m thinking it’s unremittingly bleak, the gray sky acquires the faintest hint of pink.
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    A few minutes till sunrise; the wren sounds impatient. But the clouds are heavy—overflowing, in fact. It’s light enough now to see the flakes.

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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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