wood thrush – Page 6 – The Morning Porch

June 1, 2010

Dave Bonta June 1, 2010

The tulip tree’s enormous flowers are opening, yellow and orange petals dripping nectar, accompanied by the wood thrush’s choir of one.

Dave Bonta May 25, 2010

Wood thrushes dart back and forth; three squirrel species briefly converge. My yard is less comprehensible to me than a street in Bangkok.

Dave Bonta May 3, 2010 3

Mid-morning, through the screen door, faint bell-like notes. I put the phone down and rush out into the rain. The wood thrush is back.

Dave Bonta September 23, 2009

At first light, the soft wickering of migrant wood thrushes. A deer snorts three times, and suddenly I’m seeing a bear in every shadow.

Dave Bonta August 28, 2009

Another overcast morning, with wind and the sound of trucks out of the east. Two thrushes and a gnatcatcher move silently through the lilac.

Dave Bonta July 23, 2009

Come hummingbird and bring some glitter to this damp gray morning, buzz around the bergamot, pizzazz at the beebalm’s one bedraggled bloom.

Dave Bonta July 19, 2009

A morning cold as autumn. At intervals, at the woods’ edge, a red-tailed hawk, orange light, the song of a wood thrush. Here and gone.

Dave Bonta July 10, 2009

A wood thrush sings at dawn; the trees glow faintly pink. What is it about the 3rd-quarter moon that makes it look especially edible?

Dave Bonta June 29, 2009

Wood thrush, when you go back to Honduras, don’t just forage in the campo. Sing like you do here. Let them know how we mourn.

Dave Bonta May 30, 2009

A chipmunk appears on the flat stone beside the porch and stares at me as I hum Shostokovich, its cheeks bulged wide as Dizzy Gillespie’s.

Dave Bonta May 1, 2009

Warm rain. The wood thrushes have returned to sing at the edge of the woods for another year. It’s almost possible to believe in redemption.

Dave Bonta April 28, 2009

Sandals and shirtsleeves. The thin song of a black-throated green warbler. The oaks are blooming, and the air is full of insects.

Dave Bonta September 8, 2008

In the chill of dawn, sounds come as if from a great distance: wood thrush chirping, crow calls, wren twitter, the Monday whine of traffic.

Dave Bonta September 4, 2008 1

At half-light, the scattered calls of migrant wood thrushes, dropping into the trees from their all-night flights and looking for breakfast.