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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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dawn

October 23, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Dawn. Low over the trees, the last sliver of moon like fangs of a snake trying to swallow a dark, glowing egg.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags dawn, earthshine, moon 1 Comment
October 20, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Dawn brings a chittering of sparrows from the meadow. It’s cold. Frost edges the periwinkle leaves.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags dawn, myrtle
October 19, 2022 by Dave Bonta

In the half-light of dawn, wet snow falls through the dimly glowing autumn leaves. A white-throated sparrow’s plaintive note.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags dawn, fall foliage, snow, white-throated sparrow 1 Comment
October 18, 2022 by Dave Bonta

A cold and windy dawn. The crescent moon drowns in a sorcery of pink.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, cold, dawn, sunrise, wind 2 Comments
October 7, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Dawn. I watch the stars fade then brighten again, as a thin veil of cloud I hadn’t noticed moves off like a lizard’s third eyelid.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, dawn, stars
September 26, 2022 by Dave Bonta

In the half-dark of dawn, something runs across the porch toward my feet—I scream and jump. The rabbit too appears to be discombobulated.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags cottontail, dawn
September 22, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Lightning flickers on the horizon at dawn. The dull glow of the crescent moon’s darkened bulk reminds me that the earth also shines.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags dawn, lightning, moon 1 Comment
September 21, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Dawn comes with an inversion layer, traffic noise half-smothering the scattered notes of thrushes fresh from their night flights.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags dawn, I-99, wood thrush
September 20, 2022 by Dave Bonta

A clear dawn sky, with the crescent moon like Orion’s boomerang just missing Castor and Pollux. The widely scattered chirps of migrating birds.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags dawn, stars
September 19, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Dawn. The last katydid falls silent. The fourth-quarter moon, curled up like a dried fish, disappears into a cloud.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, dawn, katydids, moon
August 29, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Dawn sky striped with red. A small cloud forms in the hollow. The sleepy croaks of a raven: urk, argh. Then the wren and it’s day.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags Carolina wren, dawn, fog, raven
May 29, 2022 by Dave Bonta

A planetary conjunction slowly infiltrated by cirrus stained the color of dawn. A barred owl calls and a wild turkey answers.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags barred owl, clouds, dawn, wild turkey
May 23, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Half awake at half-light. The dawn chorus starts promptly at 5:00 with field sparrow and towhee, then song sparrow, phoebe, robin. Train horn.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags American robin, dawn, field sparrow, phoebe, song sparrow, towhee, train
February 4, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Dawn, and all the stream’s voices are raised. A squirrel finds a black walnut sticking out of a snowbank and races off with it.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags black walnut, dawn, gray squirrel, stream
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On This Day

  • September 30, 2025
    Sunrise brings birdsong: a Tennesee warbler’s blur of high notes answered by a towhee’s interrogatory tweet, and a white-throated sparrow’s “Oh, sweet Canada” giving way to the reedy whistles of cedar waxwings, tut-tutting robins, and a winter wren’s liquid braid.
  • September 30, 2024
    Rain. The rumble of a distant jet. A squirrel crouches on a limb with her tail over her head, chiseling open a walnut.
  • September 30, 2023
    A clearing sky. with traffic sound out of the east. Six geese coming flapping low over the trees, honking like lost Volvos.
  • September 30, 2022
    Overcast and cold. A furious back-and-forth of chainsaws from the powerline, where a crew works to refresh the century-old clearcut.
  • September 30, 2021
    Clear and still. A double splat of black walnuts onto the driveway. At the top of an oak, a crow grooms itself with a soft clicking sound.

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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