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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

The Morning Porch
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warblers

May 18, 2023 by Dave Bonta

High-altitude murk gives the low-angled light a timeless feel. It’s barely above freezing, but the birds still sound ecstatic. Tennessee or Blackburnian warbler? That accelerating buzz…

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, cold, warblers
May 3, 2018 by Dave Bonta

Three days of heat have fuzzed the treetops in gray-green gauze. A warbler wheezes. The breeze makes an empty beer bottle moan.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags black-and-white warbler, warblers
May 3, 2012 by Dave Bonta

Sun struggles through the humid air: a golden glow. The leaves look twice as big as yesterday, animated by the buzzy calls of warblers.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags sunrise, warblers 3 Comments

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On This Day

  • March 14, 2025
    A few degrees above freezing and very still. The full moon hangs above the western ridge, fresh from its run-in with the earth’s shadow, glowing…
  • March 14, 2024
    Bright blear of a sun in a sky more white than blue. Its light reflecting off the window behind me means I am lit on…
  • March 14, 2023
    The porch is plastered with fresh snow; more flakes fly past without stopping. A Carolina wren holds forth from the heart of a barberry.
  • March 14, 2022
    Sunrise reddens the western ridge and its whine of traffic. Cardinal song. With my last sip of tea, the sun strikes my face.
  • March 14, 2021
    Can daylight be saved? An hour late, I watch the sun assemble itself among the ridgetop trees one blazing shard at a time—a kind of…

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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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