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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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Canada geese

October 1, 2009 by Dave Bonta

A sudden commotion of geese. I run to scan the sky out of habit, as if they were migratory, and their “V” still a horn open to the north.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags Canada geese
September 18, 2009 by Dave Bonta

One of the autumn grasses beloved of Basho blooms an alien red at the edge of the yard. Sudden jumbled music from a V of non-migrant geese.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags Canada geese, Japanese stiltgrass 2 Comments
October 21, 2008 by Dave Bonta

Canada geese. What leaf is small and black and falls more slowly than a feather? A fire dances up in the trash burner, the brightest thing.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags Canada geese, fire 3 Comments
April 22, 2008 by Dave Bonta

In the half-light, the faint crackling sound of a deer eating a rose bush. A lone Canada goose flies over, honking enough for a whole flock.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags Canada geese, deer, multiflora rose
November 9, 2007 by Dave Bonta

A doe trailed by a scrawny 5-point buck. The soundtrack includes a train, a raven, geese, a wren, and a low-flying plane with a wide eraser.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags Canada geese, Carolina wren, deer, plane, raven, train
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On This Day

  • August 13, 2025
    A dawn chorus of tree crickets, field crickets and mole crickets. After a half-clear sunrise, the clouds move in.
  • August 13, 2024
    A meteor streaks the dawn sky—a fast, yellow brushstroke. From over the ridge, the quarry’s dull grind. The first, faint twittering from the meadow.
  • August 13, 2023
    Sun in the treetops. A Carolina wren keeps answering a flicker, as if trying to master its call. Tree crickets. A train horn.
  • August 13, 2022
    45F/7C at sunrise. I carry a chair up into the woods, watch sunlight seep down the oaks with color commentary by a red-eyed vireo.
  • August 13, 2021
    First light. A meteor slices through Orion below the belt, and I flinch like a spectator at a pro wrestling match.

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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