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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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smoke

July 17, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Unseasonably cool with the pall of wildfire smoke over the region. It is as thick as a thin mist and burns my throat. But even though their sun is a lurid red, the goldfinches and a common yellowthroat keep singing.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags American goldfinch, common yellowthroat, smoke
August 15, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Cool and still, with sunlight at half strength due to atmospheric haze—smoke from Canada’s burning forests. A wood pewee’s bluesy melisma.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, eastern wood pewee, smoke

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On This Day

  • September 5, 2025
    Inside a white whale of fog, the trees drip and drop yellow leaves, and the sun is felt more than seen, with a faint wash of blue beyond.
  • September 5, 2024
    A dawn too cold for crickets, and still except where a squirrel makes a branch tremble. From the top of a black locust, a hairy woodpecker’s nasal chirps.
  • September 5, 2023
    Through a hole in the forest canopy, a ray of sun illuminates one tall goldenrod in the springhouse meadow. An indescribably sweet odor of ripeness and rich earth.
  • September 5, 2022
    Rain prolongs the early-morning light till well past 10:00. A chipmunk appears in the garden, bustling among the drenched weeds.
  • September 5, 2021
    Rain easing off by mid-morning. At one end of the lilac, I spot some dark leaves: buckthorn, I think, grown 10 feet tall without my noticing.

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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