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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

The Morning Porch
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lightning

September 22, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Lightning flickers on the horizon at dawn. The dull glow of the crescent moon’s darkened bulk reminds me that the earth also shines.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags dawn, lightning, moon 1 Comment
September 29, 2020 by Dave Bonta

Hard rain. My brain feels sluggish, despite coffee. A flash of lightning like the apotheosis of all this yellow.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fall foliage, lightning, rain
February 27, 2009 by Dave Bonta

A downpour. Just above the ridge, a sudden flash followed by a teeth-rattling rumble, the outline of an inverted tree fading on my retina.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags lightning, rain

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On This Day

  • September 10, 2025
    Canada geese, a screech owl, some crows, and the inevitable wren sing in the sunrise, the western ridge turning red under a flat-tire moon.
  • September 10, 2024
    Clear and still. A chipmunk chips from her hole in the rock wall beside the porch, getting a much more resonant sound than her rival up in the woods.
  • September 10, 2023
    The treetops are full of fog and small birds catching insects. Everything drips. A yellowjacket begins a slow inspection of the porch balustrade.
  • September 10, 2022
    Harvest moon setting behind the western ridge, followed by a faint moon dog in the wash of cirrus.
  • September 10, 2021
    In one hole in the clouds a meteor; in another the dawn. The scattered notes of night-flying migrants coming down to roost. A quarry truck beeping.

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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