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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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black-billed cuckoo

May 22, 2021 by Dave Bonta

The black cherry blossoms are already fading, and the sun is going from dandelion-yellow to dandelion seedhead-white. Black-billed cuckoo.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags black cherry, black-billed cuckoo, clouds
June 8, 2020 by Dave Bonta

Both species of native cuckoos are calling. A dragonfly courses back and forth across the sun-drenched yard until I almost see it as a pond.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags black-billed cuckoo, dragonflies, yellow-billed cuckoo
May 25, 2020 by Dave Bonta

Humid. An indigo bunting flits from bush to bush in the yard—all likely nest spots. The mechanical-sounding call of a black-billed cuckoo.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags black-billed cuckoo, indigo bunting
October 9, 2018 by Dave Bonta

A black-billed cuckoo skulks through the lilac, elegant despite its hunched posture, its pointy-winged flight. A blue-headed vireo calls.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags black-billed cuckoo, blue-headed vireo

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On This Day

  • December 2, 2024
    Overcast and cold. Ten minutes before sunrise, a yellow rent appears in the clouds. In the distance, the neighbor’s chickens start up a racket.
  • December 2, 2023
    Fog hides the sunrise, apart from a small opening on the ridgetop that fills with golden light. Then the gray curtain comes down again.
  • December 2, 2022
    The frosted meadow glitters in the sun. A scrabbling of squirrel claws on bark. Off to the south, a raven croaks; to the north, crows.
  • December 2, 2021
    It’s damp and warmish. A red-bellied woodpecker comes silently rocketing out of the woods. The creek remains mum about last night’s rain.
  • December 2, 2020
    Raw and wintry, with snow on the ground and an iron wind. I muse on the convergent evolution of “December” and “dismember”.

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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