cattails – The Morning Porch/Patio

Thursday January 16, 2020

Dave Bonta January 16, 2020 1

I find my chair where the wind left it at the far end of the porch with a cracked back. Dried cattail leaves flap like banners for the dead.

Dave Bonta March 26, 2019

After a cold night, the gift of clarity: a mote of drifting cattail down visible at 100 yards. A raven croaking on high is echoed by a crow.

Dave Bonta November 30, 2017

Frost on the bent-down blades of cattails. Two single-prop planes from different directions—their drones blending then separating again.

Dave Bonta October 26, 2017

A hint of winter in the way the dead cattail leaves hiss and rattle. But in the garden, a few coneflowers still brandish tattered suns.

Dave Bonta January 9, 2017

White sky. The sun is a bright spot like the eye of a blind cave salamander. Doves flutter up from the cattails on piccolo wings.

Dave Bonta December 9, 2016

A few snowflakes scud past. The dried blades of cattail next to the springhouse rattle and hiss. A dead leaf on the road flips over.

Dave Bonta July 17, 2016

Cool and extraordinarily clear. With the sun on its gable end, the old springhouse glows like a lost tooth among the dark, swaying cattails.

Dave Bonta July 13, 2016

Catbird caterwauling by the cattails. Bumblebee buzzing in the bergamot. A gray fly walks the gray band of my sandal. The sun comes out.

Dave Bonta November 16, 2015

To the east, an agitated crow. Over by the cattails, an anxious wren. And behind me under the house, a groundhog bumps and scrapes.

Dave Bonta August 26, 2015 1

When the wind stops, the big locust tree that’s been creaking ominously falls silent, and the long cattail leaves all hold their poses.