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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

  • September 16, 2025
    A knife-thin moon fades into the dawn sky. The only cloud huddles in the bottom corner of the meadow, where a phoebe is calling.
  • September 16, 2024
    Sun in the top of the tall tulip poplar—yellow crowning yellow. The last nighttime cricket falls silent. Off through the thinning woods, new chinks of sky.
  • September 16, 2022
    Cold (46F) with thin, high clouds. Black walnuts knocking on the roof. A red-tailed hawk drops in to visit the squirrels.
  • September 16, 2021
    Overcast and rainy. in the dim light, sunrise is evidenced only by the appearance of mosquitoes. One after another they land on my knuckles.
  • September 16, 2020
    Sun grown vague with haze from the burning of the west. The drone note of tree crickets, so much more introspective than cicadas.

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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