tree crickets – The Morning Porch

August 25, 2026 by Dave Bonta

An autumnal morning, heavily overcast and cool. The continuous trill of tree crickets counterbalances the stream’s trickle: two kinds of traffic. A pileated woodpecker cackles.

August 4, 2021 by Dave Bonta

Cool and overcast. Goldfinches chitter over the chirr of tree crickets. For ten seconds, two hummingbirds share the bergamot.

September 3, 2025
Snakeroot flower heads are beginning to open, white as the cows’ milk that they’re said to poison. A sunbeam reaching the porch shows me the shape of my breath.
September 3, 2024
The coldest morning since May, with an inversion layer bringing sound from the east—the slightly quieter direction. The Carolina wren duets with beeping quarry trucks.
September 3, 2023
Clear and not as cool. A catbird mews from the lilac. Rays of sun in the canopy are astir with gossamer wings.
September 3, 2022
As above, so below: white sky, white snakeroot. A hummingbird buzzes in to bother the jewelweed below the porch.
September 3, 2021
5:58 am. The crescent moon is increasingly alone in the sky as the dawn light metastasizes. A distant whippoorwill.

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