spring peeper – The Morning Porch/Patio

Monday October 08, 2018

Dave Bonta October 8, 2018

Fog and a fine drizzle. A monarch butterfly, oranger than any leaf in view, glides past in the wrong direction. The cheep cheep of a peeper.

Dave Bonta September 17, 2018

Rain from a named storm seems special, like strands of hair from someone famous. Two spring peepers are calling, and faintly, the phoebe.

Dave Bonta April 30, 2014 1

Dark and rainy. Peepers call from the marsh, and the half-leafed-out lilac seems to glow, achingly green against the brown woods.

Dave Bonta April 11, 2014

The last few wood frogs still croaking down in the marsh give way to spring peepers, who soon fall silent in turn. Then the patter of rain.

Dave Bonta May 11, 2013 2

I feel it before I see it: in the half-light, the intense green of new leaves. The sound of field sparrows, towhees, spring peepers, rain.

Dave Bonta April 16, 2012 2

Dawn, and the peepers are still calling. The bridal-wreath bush glows brighter than the thin grin of a moon rising through the trees.

Dave Bonta March 16, 2012 3

At dawn, scattered drops—a passing shower. Spring peepers in the corner of the field call in spurts, like an engine running out of fuel.

Dave Bonta April 16, 2011 4

A morning so dark, the spring peepers call between showers. At the wood’s edge, slow as a dream, a blue-headed vireo repeats its only line.

Dave Bonta April 19, 2010 2

What makes the spring peepers start calling in the middle of a morning, with sun so strong I can see the faint pollen filming the floor?

Dave Bonta September 7, 2009

Labor Day. A spring peeper at dawn. In the great silence, I can hear the approach of what will turn into drizzle: the thinnest of whispers.