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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

  • December 3, 2024
    A stray snowflake wanders down from the pink clouds, itself still white. Doves flock to the birdseed on my mother’s back porch—the silvery whistles of…
  • December 3, 2023
    Steady rain. An hour past sunrise the sky brightens a little, and the trees in their green sleeves of lichen begin to glow.
  • December 3, 2022
    Cold rain. Four chickadees in a high-speed chase around the yard pause in the lilac for a vociferous exchange of views.
  • December 3, 2021
    Clouds with blue veins and sunrise bellies. Two nuthatches trade harangues. A crow summons other crows to—I’m guessing—a fresh gut pile.
  • December 3, 2020
    Bright sun; the snow on the porch has shrunk to the railings’ shadows. That special word for wind in pines, sough: putting the ow back…

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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