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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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sunrise

December 27, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Heavily overcast at sunrise, which I’m taking on faith. The sound of a Carolina wren hopping across the porch roof.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags Carolina wren, clouds, sunrise
December 12, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Heavily overcast sunrise; the only faint color comes from the ground. The great-horned owl falls silent as a nuthatch begins to call.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags great-horned owl, sunrise, white-breasted nuthatch
December 5, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Cold and still. Dove wings accompany a train whistle. A red sunrise creeps down the western ridge.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags mourning doves, sunrise, train 1 Comment
December 4, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Still haunted by dreams I can’t remember when the sun clears the ridge and sets the clouds of my breath aglow.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags sunrise 2 Comments
November 29, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Heavily overcast at sunrise; only the ground glows a faint pink, thick with rain-slick leaves. A screech owl trills.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, screech owl, sunrise
November 26, 2022 by Dave Bonta

A close shot echoes off the ridge—it’s the opening day of regular firearms deer season. The sun moves slowly through the trees, dimming, blazing.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags hunters, sunrise
November 24, 2022 by Dave Bonta

The sun finally clears the ridgetop at 8:00. A crow at the compost has an exchange with a raven high overhead: caw caw caw ARK ARK ARK etc.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags American crow, raven, sunrise
November 20, 2022 by Dave Bonta

As cold as yesterday but with orange-bellied clouds and a wind. A tulip tree seed helicopters into the yard and rises up over the house.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, cold, sunrise, tulip tree, wind
November 4, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Cold sunrise. The green hippogriff of a lilac just starting to yellow. Dry leaves whispering of deer in heat.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fall foliage, lilac, sunrise, white-tailed deer
November 3, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Cold and clear at sunrise, with sound out of the east: the quarry’s daily grind instead of the interstate. A jay answers a reverse-beeping truck.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags blue jays, quarry, sunrise, trucks
October 31, 2022 by Dave Bonta

A half hour after sunrise, a rattling in the fallen leaves: raindrops! Slowly accelerating into an actual shower. Which peters out much too soon.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags rain, sunrise
October 29, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Pale columns of sky all along the ridge. Frost as white as my breath. A rising tide of chirps and trills as sunrise draws near.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fall foliage, frost, sunrise
October 28, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Cold and mostly overcast, but the rising sun strikes my face a full hour earlier due to overnight thinning of the leaves.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, cold, sunrise
October 25, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Overcast with fog that thins out for the purported sunrise. It’s warm enough that one tree cricket trills in the herb garden.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, crickets, fog, sunrise
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On This Day

  • October 6, 2025
    Crystal-clear. A Cooper’s hawk calls from the top of the tallest tree in the yard as sunrise reddens the western ridge.
  • October 6, 2024
    Clear and cold, with more sky showing through the ridgetop trees. A raucous assembly of crows gives way to ravens—their resonant croaks.
  • October 6, 2023
    Heavily overcast—what the weather app calls “light rain”—with a crow yelling in the distance and a yellow-bellied sapsucker mewing like a kitten.
  • October 6, 2022
    Another woods-edge maple has gone red. Bouncing bet still blooms beside the porch, four months on.
  • October 6, 2021
    Overcast at dawn. The silence is broken by the periodic splats of black walnuts. A barred owl’s single, round note.

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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