Skip to content

The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

The Morning Porch
  • About
  • Keyword index
  • Subscribe/Follow
  • On This Day
  • Links
    • Via Negativa
    • Moving Poems
    • DaveBonta.com
    • Woodrat Photoblog

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.

Share on social media

  • Click to share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
  • Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon
  • Click to share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
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.

Share on social media

  • Click to share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
  • Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon
  • Click to share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
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.

Share on social media

  • Click to share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
  • Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon
  • Click to share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
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.

Share on social media

  • Click to share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
  • Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon
  • Click to share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
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.

Share on social media

  • Click to share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
  • Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon
  • Click to share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bees, black-throated green warbler, myrtle

FOLLOW VIA EMAIL

Pick up a free subscription (with options for daily and weekly digests) courtesy of WordPress.com.

Join 279 other subscribers

On This Day

  • December 12, 2024
    Bitter cold. A few small clouds turn brick-red. When the wind drops, there’s a staccato burst of pileated woodpecker alarm, answered only by a nuthatch.
  • December 12, 2023
    Waiting for dawn, I scan the holes in the clouds for meteors. The north side of the springhouse roof still wears a small blanket of…
  • December 12, 2022
    Heavily overcast sunrise; the only faint color comes from the ground. The great-horned owl falls silent as a nuthatch begins to call.
  • December 12, 2021
    After last night’s wind, the sky is clear, the forest has finally lost almost all its leaves, and there are several new creaks and groans.
  • December 12, 2020
    Three degrees above freezing, but it feels balmy. A downy woodpecker descends a maple trunk, chirping loudly with each downward hop.

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)

Copyleft

Creative Commons License
All works on this site by Dave Bonta are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

© 2025 The Morning Porch • Built with GeneratePress