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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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stream

May 1, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Cold and half-clear for a red sunrise. The stream is still quiet—more raininess than actual rain. From off in the distance, a wood thrush’s ethereal trill.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, rain, stream, sunrise, wood thrush
March 27, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Sunrise into thin cirrus. A few seconds of liquid joy: the song of winter wrens, two of them, darting low over the creek.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags stream, sunrise, winter wren
March 24, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Gray and still. Springs gurgle their liturgies. Looking nervously all about, a squirrel disinters a walnut and races into the woods with it.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags black walnut, gray squirrel, stream
February 25, 2023 by Dave Bonta

A quiet gurgling from the springs on either side of my yard. Bands of light and darkness in the east. The sun pops out from behind a tree.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags stream
January 25, 2023 by Dave Bonta

My phone insists it’s snowing, but the clouds hold their fire. The ground is nearly bare again; it could use a fresh coat. The creek has subsided to a quiet soliloquy.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags snow, stream
January 10, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Overcast but bright, and very quiet apart from the stream’s gurgle. Two squirrels seem to be hanging out, but only one acts amorous—the other remains focused on her walnut.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags black walnut, clouds, gray squirrel, stream
January 4, 2023 by Dave Bonta

The mountain is loud with running water; it sounds like March. Returning from hunting, the feral cat gives me a baleful glance as she slinks under the porch.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags cats, stream
January 2, 2023 by Dave Bonta

The sound of running water in the darkness. Occasional soft, sparrowy chirps as the sky brightens. Then the wren’s impatience bubbles over.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags Carolina wren, dawn, stream
January 1, 2023 by Dave Bonta

A clearing sky at sunrise with the sound of running water and a wren. The snow is looking threadbare, even on north-facing slopes.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags Carolina wren, snow, stream
November 5, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Unseasonably warm with a lowering sky. A six-point buck emerges from the woods and struts over to the stream as a doe looks on.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, stream, white-tailed deer
May 13, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Cloudy with a 100% chance of warblers. A wood thrush gets a drink from the stream and resumes singing. The smell of lilacs.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags lilac, stream, wood thrush
May 8, 2022 by Dave Bonta

A wet and shining woods stippled with burst buds. Over the rush of the creek, a cerulean warbler’s buzzy love song to the sky.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags cerulean warbler, stream 1 Comment
May 7, 2022 by Dave Bonta

After 24 hours of rain, water streams from the mountain’s every pore. The daffodils’ last trumpet points toward the forest.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags daffodils, rain, stream
April 8, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Crystal-clear. Treetops stained with sun. A gray squirrel pours itself into the lilac. The creek’s full-throated chorus.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags gray squirrel, lilac, stream, sunrise
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On This Day

  • November 10, 2025
    Fine flakes falling from a mottled gray sky. At the bottom of the hollow, two trains whistle the crossing at once, one high, one low.
  • November 10, 2024
    In the stillness of dawn, a blood-red stain spreads through the clouds. The winter wren wakes before the Carolina wren for once, with only slightly less strident results.
  • November 10, 2023
    Overcast and quiet an hour before sunrise. Hunters’ headlamps move back and forth on the dark hillside like lost stars.
  • November 10, 2022
    A flock of juncos at the woods’ edge, between me and the sun: shining wings against dark trunks, a blinding quiver of rays.
  • November 10, 2021
    Dawn comes with a light breeze rummaging through the oaks, a freight train laboring up the valley, the tutting of robins.

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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