zebra spider – The Morning Porch

April 6, 2013 by Dave Bonta

As my father walks out of the woods, a rabbit bursts from a rosebush and dashes under the porch. A zebra spider circles the rim of my mug.

February 23, 2025
Clear at dawn, with the bright crescent moon inching teeth-first through the treetops. A mourning dove plays a downbeat rooster.
February 23, 2024
Foggy at dawn with sound out of the east—the quarry instead of the interstate. Gray-green lichens glow on the rain-darkened trunks of sweet birches all…
February 23, 2023
Mist rises from yesterday’s half inch of icy snow. A robin briefly joins the dawn chorus. The front-garden chipmunk returns from the woods with bulging…
February 23, 2022
Unseasonably warm and overcast. Up in the woods, squirrels nose through leaf duff newly liberated from the snow. A few drops of rain.
February 23, 2021
Overcast at sunrise. The cak-cak-cak of a Cooper’s hawk beginning to think about courtship and nesting, somewhere up in the snowy woods.