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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

The Morning Porch
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equinox

March 20, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Equinox. I make it out onto the porch just as the sun peeks over the ridge. Phoebes are calling. From the top of a walnut tree, the brown-headed cowbird’s liquid lisp.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags black walnut, cowbird, equinox, phoebe, spring equinox, sunrise Leave a comment
March 20, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Thin, high clouds—enough to blur the edges of shadows. Whenever the robin pauses for breath, I can hear a phoebe calling up by the barn. Spring is here.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags American robin, clouds, equinox, phoebe
March 20, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Cold and gloomy—classic March weather for the equinox. A Cooper’s hawk calls from the treetops, underneath which two squirrels chase, oblivious.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags Cooper's hawk, equinox, gray squirrel
September 22, 2020 by Dave Bonta

Equinox. I spot some goldenrod, done flowering, turning yellow a second time. My mother stops by to tell me about a singing porcupine.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags equinox, goldenrod, porcupine
May 25, 2024September 22, 2018 by Dave Bonta

White sky, bleary sun. Cold air, hot coffee. That equinoctial balance. Crickets trill, chipmunks tick, aspen leaves flip back and forth.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags chipmunks, crickets, equinox, quaking aspen

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On This Day

  • March 30, 2025
    Daffodils are open under a gray-wool sky. A cowbird’s liquid note. Up by the garage, a towhee is calling.
  • March 30, 2024
    Red sunrise. To the south, the moon has gone flat on one side so it resembles a giant ear for the first crow to yell…
  • March 30, 2023
    Clear and cold. Frost glitters in the low-angled sun. The miniature daffodils are frozen in positions of prayer.
  • March 30, 2022
    Five degrees below freezing and heavily overcast. A thin, lispy note—some finch, I guess, high in the black locusts. The dry hiss of sleet.
  • March 30, 2021
    Crystal clear sky. Hundreds of daffodil buds look ready to open this afternoon. From up in the woods, a cry like a strangled crow.

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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