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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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house wren

October 19, 2016 by Dave Bonta

The barberry beside the stream is turning from the inside out: under a green cloak, salmon pink, blood-red beads, the hurdy-gurdy of a wren.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags barberry, fall foliage, house wren, stream 1 Comment
September 25, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Clear and cold. A squirrel trots into the woods with the green globe of a walnut clenched in its teeth. The oleaginous burble of a wren.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags black walnut, gray squirrel, house wren
August 31, 2009 by Dave Bonta

The low-frequency hum of a passing jet vibrates the windows and the ladder’s metal rungs. A wren chatters alarm at the missing floorboards.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags house wren
July 31, 2009 by Dave Bonta

A house wren ascends a stepladder in the steady rain. With a sudden crack, the cherry tree beside the porch sheds a dead branch.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags cherry tree, house wren

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On This Day

  • March 15, 2025
    Overcast and quiet. The gray hulk of a dead red maple by the road has dropped another small limb—former rung on my favorite ladder into…
  • March 15, 2024
    A gray cloud ceiling brightens toward the horizon. A phoebe stridently announces himself to the echoey hillside and the daffodils trembling in the breeze.
  • March 15, 2023
    Clear and cold, with a bitter wind to remind me it’s actually March. I watch the sun through the corner of my eye as it…
  • March 15, 2022
    Sun through thin clouds—a milky light. A phoebe is making the rounds, chanting his call at every past nesting spot: barn, shed, garage…
  • March 15, 2020
    Bright sun. The damp ground glistens like a salamander. A jet goes over—the first I’ve heard in a while.

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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