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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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litter

April 5, 2019 by Dave Bonta

Rain seasoned with sleet. The trapped balloons hang limply from their dead tree, wrinkled like over-ripe fruit.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags litter, rain, sleet
March 31, 2019 by Dave Bonta

Snow mixed with sleet. The feral balloons have wrapped themselves more tightly around their tree—a classic trade of freedom for security.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags litter, sleet, snow
March 25, 2019March 25, 2019 by Dave Bonta

Trapped in a tree, two balloons bearing a picture of a basketball and the name of a school west of Pittsburgh rub their Mylar skins together.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags litter

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On This Day

  • September 29, 2025
    A sunrise muted by cirrus. Dew dripping from the roof. The undeniable brownness of leaves that had been bright as holiday cards: death has taken that holiday, it seems.
  • September 29, 2024
    The rain goes on and on for hours. I watch a drenched squirrel at the end of a branch lose his grip on a walnut. A small brown moth circles my face.
  • September 29, 2023
    Every morning more yellow in the woods. What’s happening while we sleep? An unseen full moon. Migrant thrushes descending through the clouds at dawn.
  • September 29, 2022
    Breezy, cold and clear. Perfect weather for my favorite autumn sport, watching leaves fall: those that tumble, those that plummet, those that twirl.
  • September 29, 2021
    Partly sunny and cold. The kak-kak-kak of a Cooper’s hawk up in the woods. Polyrhythms of scolding chipmunks.

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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