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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

The Morning Porch
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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

  • January 7, 2025
    Bitter cold with a wind. The happy sounds of juncos coming down to drink from the spring’s thin trickle. Overhead, a faint wash of pink.
  • January 7, 2024
    Gray above, white below: a snowbird hops atop five inches of fresh snow, noshing on goldenrod, snakeroot, and stiltgrass seeds, leaving lines of little arrows…
  • January 7, 2023
    Overcast and quiet, with a fresh​ dusting of snow. A squirrel loses its nerve and backs off from a death-defying leap.
  • January 7, 2021
    Cloudy and cold. The sound of crows trying to call up a mob. A squirrel perched on a high branch scratches behind its ear with…
  • January 7, 2020
    Snow. I unfocus my gaze and the flakes become threads, runnels, roots. I remember a dream in which my beard had grown down to the…

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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