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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 22, 2025
    Patches of blue, and a pair of hawks arrowing north silhouetted against the clouds. An inversion layer brings traffic noise from over the ridge, but…
  • March 22, 2024
    Cold and still. The rising sun shines straight down the old woods road to illuminate the whitewashed springhouse, just three days past the equinox.
  • March 22, 2023
    Cold and gray. Up in the corner of the field, a tom turkey raises and lowers the dark banner of his tail, gobbling at his…
  • March 22, 2022
    Weak sun through thickening clouds. A robin and his echo. The metallic taps of a titmouse opening a sunflower seed against a drainpipe.
  • March 22, 2021
    Sunrise. I watch the trees grow shadows and pelts of sunlight. Anyone rooted can become a gnomon: from the Greek, an expert or interpreter.

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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