black cherry – The Morning Porch/Patio

Monday July 18, 2016

Dave Bonta July 18, 2016

Two chipmunks eating unripe drupes high in a black cherry tree suspend their usual hostilities. One jumps over the other when they meet.

Dave Bonta June 8, 2016

Wind salted with rain. A male indigo bunting clings to a black cherry branch like the one blue leaf, fluttering with the rest.

Dave Bonta June 2, 2016

In a lull between showers, the sideways shimmy of birch and black cherry leaves. One of the neighbors’ hens begins to screech.

Dave Bonta April 28, 2016

Cold drizzle. A brown thrasher improvises at the woods’ edge, and I spot the first tent caterpillar web—a tiny white flag in a wild cherry.

Dave Bonta October 28, 2015

Gray rain ripples the air—November’s fur blurring the last splashes of bright October: salmon-colored cherry leaves, a vivid limb of maple.

Dave Bonta June 13, 2015

Overcast and cool. It takes me a while to notice that a cherry tree has fallen into the meadow 50 feet away, half-buried in the tall weeds.

Dave Bonta May 3, 2015

The woods’ edge is a collage of pastels: just-opened leaves, catkins, maple keys. The old cherry stump chirps like a phone: baby bluebirds.

Dave Bonta May 4, 2014

This spring is like a familiar symphony slowed way down. Grace notes become held notes: birch catkins. Bud-burst in the black cherry trees.

Dave Bonta January 17, 2014 1

The sun fades from blaze to smolder to smear. I notice a bent-down cherry limb that looks like a dancer—something I won’t be able to un-see.

Dave Bonta May 23, 2013

Rain in the wee hours has left the lilac with leaves bent over, showing their pale backs. Above, the white missiles of black cherry blooms.