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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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springhouse

August 22, 2008 by Dave Bonta

The air is still and quiet. In the springhouse meadow, the ears of a doe appear above the goldenrod, pivoting like leaves in a private wind.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags goldenrod, springhouse
July 26, 2008 by Dave Bonta

A crashing sound from the springhouse meadow: a pair of bucks chasing each other, frisky as fawns and neck-deep in weeds they do not eat.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags springhouse
June 22, 2008 by Dave Bonta

A fawn follows its mother through the springhouse meadow, spots like stars on a pelt dark with moisture from the sopping-wet vegetation.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags springhouse
June 19, 2008 by Dave Bonta

Clear, 44°F. The doe who I think lost her fawn makes small, anxious grunts as she plows through the wet meadow in front of the springhouse.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags springhouse
April 27, 2008 by Dave Bonta

Overcast and cold. The porch and yard are aglow with cherry blossoms, blown down by yesterday’s storms. A catbird mews from the springhouse.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags catbird, springhouse
December 20, 2007 by Dave Bonta

Distant sound of a rasp on wood: the porcupine’s last meal of the night. In the springhouse lawn, the silhouette of a cat taking a shit.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags porcupine, springhouse
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On This Day

  • March 2, 2025
    Bitter cold and overcast. After a bit of belly-grooming, the stone-wall chipmunk races across the yard to forage under the lilac, only to be chased…
  • March 2, 2024
    Rain clouds have settled in among the trees with their bodies like smoke. Wood frogs and forest salamanders must be stirring in their death-like sleep.
  • March 2, 2023
    The mid-morning sun in the forecast comes with a scrim of cloud, a breeze, and a raven on the ridgetop going bonk…bonk…bonk…
  • March 2, 2022
    The far-off fluting of tundra swans. I scan the sky for them—no luck. I resume reading about horrors on my phone.
  • March 2, 2021
    An hour before sunrise, the bitter wind says winter but the creek says spring. The moon’s gone flat, but is still as bright as a…

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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