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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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sunflower

September 21, 2021 by Dave Bonta

Under a thinning white sky, the thinning crown of a black cherry tree already less green than salmon. The sunflowers face every direction.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags black cherry, clouds, sunflower
August 21, 2021 by Dave Bonta

Sun in the trees and a small spot of orange beside the porch: a Mexican sunflower blooming despite having twice been dinner for a groundhog.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags groundhog, sunflower, sunrise, woodchuck
July 21, 2011 by Dave Bonta

Thanks to the drought, the bracken patch in my yard is browning from the outside in. A wild sunflower beside the path bows toward the east.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bracken, drought, sunflower 1 Comment

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On This Day

  • January 27, 2025
    Clear at daybreak with an inversion layer: tires on rumble strips interrupting the chatter of finches. The sun prickly as a porcupine among the trees.
  • January 27, 2024
    Meltwater roars in the creek. In the orange glow of sunrise, the cardinals emerge from the juniper tree, singing.
  • January 27, 2023
    Snow squall. A squirrel with two pursuers ascends a birch and turns on them, chasing again and again as the snow stops and clouds turn…
  • January 27, 2022
    Zero degrees. Sun through bare branches—a shining fur of hoarfrost. Two ravens fly in low and circle my mother’s house.
  • January 27, 2021
    Is it night or day? The 7 o’clock factory whistle has the answer. Two minutes later, the mockingbird begins to chirp—that take-charge tone.

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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