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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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thermometer

September 20, 2020 by Dave Bonta

The dial thermometer’s red arrow has just missed 0°C. A black tiger moth caterpillar is curled by the stoop like a dropped comma.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags cold, thermometer, tiger moth caterpillar
January 13, 2012January 13, 2012 by Dave Bonta

Wind-driven snow; I draw my hood tight. On the wall behind me, the thermometer’s big red arrow inches left like a clock running backward.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags cold, snow, thermometer, wind 2 Comments
March 17, 2011 by Dave Bonta

Mid-morning, and the dial thermometer’s big red arrow creeps toward 50. A small sun and bare trees bend in the distance of its convex glass.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags thermometer 2 Comments
March 30, 2010 by Dave Bonta

My dial thermometer’s big red arrow says just above freezing; its shadow says just below. And in the glass, bare trees, clouds flying south.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags thermometer
February 6, 2008 by Dave Bonta

Ground-level clouds appear and disappear in the half-dark; even the thermometer is fogged up. Over the roar of the stream, a robin’s song.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags American robin, fog, stream, thermometer

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On This Day

  • January 12, 2025
    Not far below freezing. The sun appears through a keyhole in the clouds. A gray squirrel reaches into the snow and extracts a black walnut.
  • January 12, 2024
    The Carolina wren who sleeps above my laundry-room door forms a one-bird cheering section for the sunrise. Then the cloud-lid closes, and only the creek…
  • January 12, 2023
    Fog prolongs the dawn well past sunrise. How long will squirrels keep scolding after a cat has slunk away? Ten minutes and counting.
  • January 12, 2021
    A mixed flock of winter birds flitting though the yard. The mockingbird comes flying over the house and joins them at a half-frozen seep.
  • January 12, 2020
    A yellow gash appears in the clouds to the east and heals up again. The cardinal attacks his reflection. Military jets howl over, unseen.

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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