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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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bluebird

March 10, 2012 by Dave Bonta

It’s not my imagination; the bluebird saves his best song for the bluest skies. But this morning, even a passing plane sounds inspired.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bluebird, plane 4 Comments
February 21, 2012 by Dave Bonta

Sunrise. The bluebird warbles once, as if unsure whether it really will be that kind of day. The cardinal keeps singing his one good note.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bluebird, cardinal, sunrise 2 Comments
February 4, 2012 by Dave Bonta

A wool-gray sky. This is not the blue morning we were promised! But tell it to the bluebirds warbling above the garage.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bluebird 2 Comments
March 16, 2016March 12, 2011 by Dave Bonta

Sunrise: a bluebird warbles. From a thousand feet up, the cry of a killdeer, that lost shorebird, circling the long brown waves of hills.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bluebird, killdeer 7 Comments

Sunrise. A bluebird sings from…

March 4, 2010 by Dave Bonta

Sunrise. A bluebird sings from the electric line, and suddenly it feels 25 degrees warmer. A ragged V of geese, too low to be migrants.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bluebird, Canada geese, sunrise
July 20, 2009 by Dave Bonta

A bluebird warbles in the darkness. Eyelids heavy with hours of missing sleep, I squint into the spreading stain of light.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bluebird
March 16, 2016March 18, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Bluebird, white-throated sparrow, a starling’s liquid note, and high overhead, a killdeer: the sky must be blue above the fog.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bluebird, deer, fog, killdeer, starling
February 26, 2009 by Dave Bonta

I keep hearing fragments of song—winter wren, bluebird, song sparrow—and the usual tight flock of siskins in a walnut tree going zzzzzzip.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bluebird, pine siskin, song sparrow, winter wren
February 9, 2009 by Dave Bonta

A cloudless sunrise. Snow lingers on the west-facing hillside, hard and ugly as guilt. For the first time in months, a bluebird’s song.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bluebird, sunrise
November 9, 2008 by Dave Bonta

Cold and overcast. Four silent bluebirds drop into the spicebush in my herb garden and begin gobbling the blood-red drupes, stones and all.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bluebird, garden, spicebush
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On This Day

  • December 22, 2024
    Very cold and still. Over by the springhouse, juncos are making their happy sounds. A mourning dove moans.
  • December 22, 2023
    Half an hour till sunrise. The sky’s gray matter is deeply furrowed. The caroling of a Carolina wren briefly dispels the gloom.
  • December 22, 2021
    Patches of blue sky; occasional snowflakes. What appears to be a butterfly fluttering through the treetops must be a dead leaf.
  • December 22, 2020
    After a night of light rain, the snowpack has shrunk, revealing a microtopography of logs, pits and mounds—bones under the skin of an elder.
  • December 22, 2019
    Bright sun with a bit of warmth, but the trees’ long shadows give shelter to the snow. A squirrel leaps headlong through the treetops.

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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