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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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bouncing bet

October 6, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Another woods-edge maple has gone red. Bouncing bet still blooms beside the porch, four months on.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bouncing bet, red maple, soapwort
July 24, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Hazy but not yet hot. Hummingbirds circle the soapwort patch, as if following the red threads of bindweed.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bindweed, bouncing bet, ruby-throated hummingbird
July 11, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Sunlight dulled by high haze. A squirrel in the garden grooms its genitals, then pulls a soapwort blossom close for an almost-kiss.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bouncing bet, gray squirrel, soapwort

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On This Day

  • February 21, 2025
    Gray skies and a bitter wind. Snowflakes keep finding the open book in my lap; I sweep them off with a glove before they can…
  • February 21, 2024
    Cold and mostly clear at sunrise. Long before the sun clears the ridge, the bright red cardinal is tapping at all my windows.
  • February 21, 2023
    Interval of sun on a rainy morning—the forest shines and steams. The distant yammering of a pileated. The interstate’s whine.
  • February 21, 2022
    Sun shining through thin, high clouds. An inversion layer turns the rumble of a freight train into something I can feel in my chest.
  • February 21, 2021
    Bone-achingly cold. A squirrel navigating the tulip tree walks on the undersides of snowy limbs. Sunrise stains the western ridge blood-red.

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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