mourning cloak – The Morning Porch

May 28, 2011 by Dave Bonta

A mourning cloak butterfly circles the porch and yard three times, going behind my chair, including me in whatever it means to outline.

January 6, 2025
The merest shimmer of snow against the dark trees. The shriek of misaligned wheels on a lumbering freight train. One of the neighbor’s hens yelling…
January 6, 2024
Heavy gray clouds, and a breeze from the east: storm coming. Something flushes all the doves from the spring—a euphony of bright notes.
January 6, 2023
A few flakes of snow. Valley sounds eddy on the wind. The sun makes an appearance among the ridgetop trees.
January 6, 2020
Sun through trees. Where one squirrel has just raced over the snow another squirrel follows, pausing in the same places. The allure of heat.
January 6, 2018
Another brutally cold morning. From somewhere under the house where the heating ducts run, the trilling of a Carolina wren.