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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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sunrise

August 14, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Cool and clear at sunrise. A yellow walnut leaf rests on the end table instead of a book. The slow motor of a bumblebee.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bumblebee, fall foliage, sunrise
September 3, 2025August 11, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Cold and still at sunrise. A hummingbird zooms past, pausing over a snakeroot that is almost in bloom.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags ruby-throated hummingbird, sunrise, white snakeroot
August 10, 2024 by Dave Bonta

An autumnal sunrise, with crisp air and the creek full of voices, bracken browning in the yard, and the walnut leaves experimenting with carotenoids.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags black walnut, bracken, stream, sunrise
August 7, 2024August 7, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Rain at dawn, tapering off by sunrise. Everything looks drenched. From behind the house, an indigo bunting’s cascade of notes.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags indigo bunting, rain, sunrise
August 6, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Nearly silent at sunrise, except for the field crickets playing their only hit: so much autumn and melancholy in that raspy metronome.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags crickets, sunrise 1 Comment
August 5, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Clear at sunrise, and cool enough that the crickets are still. I notice the big tulip tree at the woods’ edge has shed all its drought-stressed leaves and is green again.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags drought, sunrise, tulip tree
August 4, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Partly cloudy and cool at sunrise, with 97% humidity and very little noise from—I’m guessing—valleys full of fog. A single-engine plane fades into the distance.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, fog, plane, sunrise
July 27, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Sun in the treetops. I try to re-find the half moon—nothing but goldfinches.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags American goldfinch, moon, sunrise
July 17, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Cloudy at sunrise. The bump bump of a groundhog returning to a burrow under the house. A dragonfly cuts back and forth across the yard.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags dragonflies, groundhog, sunrise
July 3, 2024 by Dave Bonta

A deer moves through the sunrise meadow, head and ears visible above the weeds. The furious chittering of a small flock of goldfinches swirling past.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags American goldfinch, deer, sunrise
June 23, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Overcast. Sunrise is when the crows wake up. A large brown moth tucks itself into the eaves.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags American crow, clouds, moths, sunrise
June 21, 2024 by Dave Bonta

A hazy sunrise for the first full day of astronomical summer. The feral garlics are raising crane’s-bill heads.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags garlic, sunrise
June 19, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Mist rising from the meadow. In the woods, one moss-covered bole of a black birch is illuminated by a random shaft of sun.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fog, mist, sunrise 1 Comment
June 14, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Overcast at sunrise. The jumping spider who lives under my chair comes topside for a brief scuttle about. A red-bellied woodpecker bangs on his morning drum.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, jumping spider, red-bellied woodpecker, sunrise
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On This Day

  • January 14, 2025
    The deep cold has returned, bringing silence and a bitter wind. The just-past-full moon slips behind a cloud in the west and never returns. From…
  • January 14, 2024
    Snow at first light—a silent mob of moving shadows, pecks on my cheek—then as dawn approaches, the slow differentiation of black and swirling white.
  • January 14, 2023
    In the pre-dawn darkness, something is barking up on the ridge—a disconsolate sound, nearly inaudible over the bitter wind.
  • January 14, 2020
    Cold and gloomy. A raven alights on a squirrel nest at the top of an oak near the woods’ edge and settles in for a…
  • January 14, 2019
    Low sun on snow—even the shadows glitter. I’m feeling creaky, like the labored wingbeats of a dove starting up from the water.

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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