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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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humidity

June 21, 2021 by Dave Bonta

Hot and humid. A silver-spotted skipper draws my eye to a bindweed trumpet, its silent hosannas seemingly aimed at the ancient rose bush.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bindweed, humidity, rose bush, silver-spotted skipper
June 20, 2021 by Dave Bonta

Humidity so thick that breathing feels like vaping. Cabbage whites puddle in the road—the hallucinatory, slow fanning of 21 pairs of wings.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags cabbage white butterfly, humidity
August 13, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Warm and humid. The air is redolent with rot and mold. A hummingbird zooms past, almost too fast for the eye to register. My stomach growls.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags humidity, ruby-throated hummingbird
August 20, 2014 by Dave Bonta

Overcast and humid. A Carolina wren trills in short bursts, as if in imitation of the crickets creaking in the long grass.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags Carolina wren, crickets, humidity 1 Comment
May 22, 2013 by Dave Bonta

Warm and humid. A hornet inspecting the porch on foot pauses in front of my sandals, waving her antennae like Geiger counter wands.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags hornet, humidity 1 Comment
June 22, 2011 by Dave Bonta

The steady rain of 6 a.m. gives way to sticky heat by 10. I stand gazing like a sad father at the portion of my garden given over to moss.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags humidity, moss, rain 1 Comment

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On This Day

  • April 23, 2025
    A smear of sun, strong enough to cast thin shadows. Four white-throated sparrows trade variations of the same song like old-time fiddlers, trying slightly different…
  • April 23, 2024
    The sun climbs from clarity into murk. Feeling insufficiently caffeinated, I watch the tulip tree’s tall, green torch fade to chartreuse.
  • April 23, 2023
    Cool and damp at sunrise. A small cottontail grazes at the woods’ edge: a salad of tiny leaves. A gnatcatcher’s soft soliloquy.
  • April 23, 2022
    A 30-second rain. I count nine shades of green, all circled by a cardinal in his flame-colored cap. The daffodils once again stand erect.
  • April 23, 2021
    Bright sun. High in the tulip tree, among the shining leaf nubbins, two robins meet for combat and tumble to the ground.

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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