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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

The Morning Porch
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house finches

December 23, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Freezing mist—enough for drip-line percussion from the roof. The waxy chatter of finches up at my mother’s feeders. Down in the hollow, the thunder of a pileated woodpecker.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags American goldfinch, freezing rain, house finches, pileated woodpecker
January 27, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Clear at daybreak with an inversion layer: tires on rumble strips interrupting the chatter of finches. The sun prickly as a porcupine among the trees.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags house finches, I-99, sunrise

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On This Day

  • February 18, 2025
    Deep cold at dawn. Icicles hanging from the eaves bend this way and that. The trees creak and groan. The *chip, chip* of a cardinal waking up.
  • February 18, 2024
    Through two hats and a hood, the wind’s bitter whisper reaches my ear. Odd moans and creaking sounds issue from the trees, whose dark silhouettes…
  • February 18, 2023
    Sun blazing through the trees illuminates lost snowflakes, miles from the nearest cloud. A chipmunk with hibernation insomnia races up the driveway.
  • February 18, 2022
    Windy and cold after last night’s freakish warmth. Up in the woods, a large coyote trots across the threadbare snowpack. The wail of a train.
  • February 18, 2021
    Fine snow is falling, an hour before sunrise. Dogs start barking in the distance, and after a while a coyote answers—one long, wavering cry.

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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