red admiral – The Morning Porch

August 29, 2016 by Dave Bonta

The sudden crash of a limb breaks the stillness. A red admiral butterfly lands beside my book, wings opening and closing—a wilder text.

July 12, 2015 by Dave Bonta

The sun disappears before it clears the treetops. A red admiral butterfly and a carpenter bee rest on the porch railing, inches apart.

June 21, 2012 by Dave Bonta

A red admiral butterfly that keeps changing sizes turns out to be two butterflies, wary of each other, wary about perching on my legs.

December 4, 2024
After an orange sunrise, in the ordinary light of an overcast morning, the mechanical tapping of a downy woodpecker, the slow wingbeats of a raven.
December 4, 2023
A mottled gray sky all the way to the horizon, not brightening even for the sunrise, let alone for the crows with their many complaints…
December 4, 2022
Still haunted by dreams I can’t remember when the sun clears the ridge and sets the clouds of my breath aglow.
December 4, 2021
Clear except for two contrails, fuzzy with age. Another scrap of gray paper has fallen from the old hornets’ nest, its lines blank as ever.
December 4, 2020
The snow has shrunk to a few spots the low sun doesn’t reach. In the herb bed, the only white is a pile of clippings…