litter – The Morning Porch

April 5, 2019 by Dave Bonta

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

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.

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.

January 17, 2025
Every morning should start this way, with enough snow fallen in the night to erase yesterday’s tracks: the proverbial clean slate. The sound of my…
January 17, 2024
Five degrees and breezy. The creek still gurgles, low and slow, with Venus through the trees flickering like a candle in the wind.
January 17, 2023
Cold rain. The last scrap of December’s snow in the yard has shrunk to the size of a handkerchief. A back-and-forth between a titmouse and…
January 17, 2022
The tail-end of a storm that brought snow, sleet, freezing rain, and snow again. The trees look like they’ve been dipped in confectioner’s sugar.
January 17, 2021
Seven cardinals—three pairs and a lone male—take turns drinking from the stream, then perch in the lilac’s bare branches, four feet apart.