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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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sunrise

December 16, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Cold and very quiet; I’m startled by a rumble from my own gut. The western ridge turns blood-red.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags sunrise
December 14, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Waiting for the sun at -8C. It’s clear and quiet, except for a squirrel rummaging through frosted leaves, climbing up to a low limb and beginning to gnaw.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags gray squirrel, sunrise
December 11, 2023 by Dave Bonta

The western ridge is white with snow and more flakes spin down from thinning clouds, bellies turning orange against the blue. A crow kites overhead without flapping a wing.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags American crow, snow, sunrise
December 10, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Steady rain—a gloomy sunrise. The big dead maple next to the road has the palest bark, its faces gone blank as masks.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags rain, red maple, sunrise
December 9, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Red at dawn, and red again at sunrise for the last day of regular firearms deer season. Finally, at fifteen minutes past sunrise, a rifle booms. Then silence again.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags dawn, hunters, sunrise
December 2, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Fog hides the sunrise, apart from a small opening on the ridgetop that fills with golden light. Then the gray curtain comes down again.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fog, sunrise
November 28, 2023 by Dave Bonta

A scurf of snow on the ground. A few fat clouds, barely moving, turn orange. A lone crow in the treetops coos like a dove.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags American crow, clouds, snow, sunrise
November 26, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Another still, cold sunrise. I watch Venus creeping through the crown of a black locust, dwindling to a point that finally vanishes behind a flotilla of small clouds.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags sunrise, Venus 2 Comments
November 22, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Wet and overcast at sunrise. The forest floor with its carpet of leaves almost glows for a minute or two before subsiding into ordinary brown.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fall foliage, sunrise
November 19, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Waiting for the sun as the western ridge turns from pink to orange to yellow. The plastic flamingo in my garden is furred with frost.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags sunrise 2 Comments
November 15, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Cold and still at sunrise. The western ridge turns from barn-red to gold, like an autumn in reverse.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags sunrise
November 14, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Sunrise hidden by a layer of cloud. A white-footed mouse explores the corrugated roof over my oil tanks, its likely sickness shown by its lack of fear.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, sunrise, white-footed mouse
November 13, 2023 by Dave Bonta

22F/-5C at sunrise. Every twig and leaf is lightly frosted. I watch my clouds of breath drift into the yard.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags cold, frost, sunrise
November 11, 2023 by Dave Bonta

A few patches of frost in the yard as the sun clears the ridgetop. Juncos move through the rambling old lilac, its last few leaves faded nearly to yellow.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags frost, lilac, sunrise
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On This Day

  • December 8, 2024
    The first sunrise above freezing in weeks. The sun climbs into the palest shade of blue as treetops sway and gyrate in the wind. A…
  • December 8, 2023
    The moon’s bright bowl full of darkness rises through the trees at dawn and vanishes into clouds. Two great-horned owls on the valley side of…
  • December 8, 2022
    A late-morning brightness in the clouds. A white-breasted nuthatch descending a tall black locust turns right-side-up.​
  • December 8, 2021
    Rising late, what have I missed? The sky is white and the air is dead still. There’s no snow. The usual birds are making their…
  • December 8, 2020
    Bright sun, icy breeze. A few flakes zoom past. The only cloud is tiny and dissolves as I watch, leaving the sky to the fourth-quarter…

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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