coffee – The Morning Porch/Patio

Thursday June 09, 2011

Dave Bonta June 9, 2011 1

Sticky and warm. A clink of ice in my coffee startles up a deer, her tan coat passing in front of a cloud of blossoming mountain laurel.

Dave Bonta June 7, 2011 3

The dawn sky turns salmon. Down by the stream, the hollow cough of a deer. A swig of coffee and I’m off to count birds before the rain.

Dave Bonta May 25, 2011 1

Coffee in my left hand, I weed the herb bed with my right, muttering at the clover: out with you, foul sweetener! as my fingers turn black.

Dave Bonta February 9, 2011 18

Dawn: a thin band of vivid pink. I glance down at my coffee, and when I look back it’s gone, the sky’s gray. A titmouse’s monotonous song.

Dave Bonta October 13, 2010

I stroll down into the yard to examine grass blades outlined by the first, patchy frost, accompanied by my coffee’s pillar of steam.

Dave Bonta June 14, 2010

Coffee mug in one hand, I’m weeding stiltgrass from the herb bed. Such a delicate invader, so easy to kill! And yet so tough to eradicate.

Dave Bonta February 9, 2010

The soft trills of a screech owl an hour before dawn. I sip my coffee as quietly as I can.

Dave Bonta January 15, 2010

Out earlier than usual, it takes me much too long to understand why the cloudy sky is darker than the snow. Black coffee, enlighten me!

Dave Bonta January 11, 2010 1

Finishing my coffee, I walk to the edge of the porch and stop short: the western horizon is a dark battleship gray, an anti-sunrise.

Dave Bonta November 7, 2009

The latched door beneath the porch stands ajar. I step gingerly through the frost-edged blades of grass, carrying my coffee like a lamp.