cottontail – The Morning Porch/Patio

Saturday January 26, 2019

Dave Bonta January 26, 2019 2

From under the house, rabbit tracks encircling a half-eaten raspberry cane, raccoon tracks going straight to the stream—muddy on the return.

Dave Bonta February 9, 2018

Steady, fine snow—the kind that means business. A rabbit dashes across the springhouse yard and disappears into the crown of a fallen tree.

Dave Bonta January 18, 2018

A tangle of tracks in the yard: rabbit, cat, squirrel, mouse… I’m not picturing a children’s book, but each creature fearful and alone.

Dave Bonta July 16, 2016

A rabbit trots up the road, rounds the bend and continues past the house like the bearer of urgent news. A beetle with red elytra sails by.

Dave Bonta May 18, 2016

A rabbit in the rain eats grass the way I eat ramen, one long strip disappearing into its mouth, drops flying. A hummingbird buzzes my face.

Dave Bonta May 7, 2016 1

All the tulip trees I’ve planted over the years are shimmering towers of pale green. A rabbit’s ears twitch in a patch of wild mustard.

Dave Bonta April 8, 2015

The last of the snow has vanished, and the air shimmers with fine rain. A foraging rabbit keeps pausing to scratch its ear.

Dave Bonta April 2, 2015

Sunny and warm. A rabbit emerges from its burrow to graze on dead grass. Chickadees singing “fee-bee” are interrupted by an actual phoebe.

Dave Bonta March 9, 2015 1

Yesterday’s melting has turned old footprints from pits into little hills. New tracks are muddy brown, fading out by the middle of the yard.

Dave Bonta January 29, 2015

Shrunk in the cold, the porch floorboards pop loudly when I come out. In my snowshoe tracks below the porch, a scattering of rabbit pellets.