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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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sunrise

March 18, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Blue above the cloud bank blocking the sunrise. At the woods’ edge, white-breasted nuthatches are having a free and frank exchange of views.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, sunrise, white-breasted nuthatch
March 16, 2024 by Dave Bonta

The sun finally clears the one, thin cloud above the horizon only to disappear into a thicket. The robin has taken a break, so the titmouse holds forth.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags American robin, sunrise, tufted titmouse
March 13, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Thin clouds gone faintly pink. Under the endless robin song, a winter wren sings burbling accompaniment to the creek.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags American robin, clouds, stream, sunrise, winter wren
March 12, 2024 by Dave Bonta

The sun climbs through bare trees while I’m not looking, lost in blue like the titmouse with his endless diatribe.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags sunrise, tufted titmouse
March 8, 2024 by Dave Bonta

After a bright sunrise, the clouds move in, one settling among the trees. The creek sounds more sober now, and here and there, the grass is greening up.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, stream, sunrise
March 1, 2024 by Dave Bonta

At the end of a tunnel of shining twigs, the rising sun. A red-bellied woodpecker whinnies from the top of a locust tree. The furnace under my house rumbles to life.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags red-bellied woodpecker, sunrise
February 29, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Leap Day. The trees sway and clatter; winter is back. A small cloud turns pink.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags sunrise, wind
February 24, 2024 by Dave Bonta

The woods are far more brown than white after yesterday’s warmth. I glance up from my book to a splash of yellow in the clouds, lapsing into another day’s gray.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, snow, sunrise
February 22, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Overcast at sunrise, but the cloud lid lifts enough for the sun to glimmer through when it crests the ridge. Saturday’s snow is looking threadbare—a disintegrating shroud over the not-yet dead.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, snow, sunrise
February 21, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Cold and mostly clear at sunrise. Long before the sun clears the ridge, the bright red cardinal is tapping at all my windows.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags cardinal, sunrise
February 20, 2024 by Dave Bonta

In the rising sun’s slow shadow-play projected onto the snow, sleeping trees drift on a sea of glitter. A visitation of wings.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags snow, sunrise
February 19, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Cold and still at sunrise. A chipmunk pops up from under the house and scuttles over to the stone wall, where it stops to watch the clouds turn colors.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags chipmunks, clouds, sunrise
February 10, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Unseasonably warm and very quiet. Sunrise appears through a rift in the clouds: gold in the east, black in the west. The last five piles of icy snow look as out of place as alien spacecrafts.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, snow, sunrise
February 8, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Dawn clouds stacked liked a ladder of blood. Chattering nuthatches. A dove’s breathy song sounds far from mournful.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, dawn, mourning doves, sunrise, white-breasted nuthatch
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On This Day

  • February 6, 2025
    The ground is white with sleet and graupel, and there’s a shimmer of rain from a sky like gray wool. A pileated woodpecker bursts out…
  • February 6, 2024
    Clear and cold, the ground gray with frost. Sunrise reddens the western ridge. A propeller plane fades into the distance.
  • February 6, 2023
    Dull gray clouds since well before sunrise, but the cardinal is an engine of cheer. It’s two degrees above freezing. Anything could happen.
  • February 6, 2022
    As the sun rises, it descends from icy treetops to hoarfrosted lower branches. It’s quiet. The dial thermometer’s pointer jumps from 8 to 10.
  • February 6, 2021
    Sunrise and the clouds turn pink as the waning crescent moon turns pale. A squirrel way up in the woods begins its trek to the…

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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