oaks – The Morning Porch/Patio

Friday November 22, 2019

Dave Bonta November 22, 2019 1

After a windy night, the whole horizon is visible beyond the trees. I watch one of the last oak leaves float down, rocking, taking its time.

Dave Bonta December 11, 2018

The wind sounds even colder hissing through the leaves that still cling to an oak at the woods’ edge. I pull down my cap against the sun.

Dave Bonta December 7, 2018 2

The ground is once again white, and there’s a wind. A dry, brown oak leaf dropping from the sky rocks from side to side like a small boat.

Dave Bonta November 29, 2018 2

Cloudy but bright. I notice many of the pits in the old snow, melted down by oak leaves, have acquired new snow and a second, upstairs leaf.

Dave Bonta November 21, 2018

A singing contest between white-throated sparrows. Newly fallen oak leaves skitter back and forth on the snow under the trees.

Dave Bonta November 18, 2018

A slow, rhythmless dripping from the top roof. The oak leaves scattered across the snow have only melted themselves the shallowest of pits.

Dave Bonta November 16, 2018

Truly an autumn snow: eight inches with a topping of fallen oak leaves. In the green and brown lilac, a house finch’s purple breast.

Dave Bonta November 13, 2018

Two oak leaves are caught by a birch, one after the other. From somewhere in the clouds, the buzzing rattle of a plane with a loose part.

Dave Bonta November 10, 2018

First snowfall of the year—a quarter inch. Newly fallen oak leaves roll across it, or scuttle like crabs on their curled lobe-tips.

Dave Bonta November 7, 2018

It’s morning in America, and I’m looking at a deep blue sky and a hillside of oaks—rust-red leaves still hanging on. They glow in the sun.