12/12/2023

Dave Bonta December 12, 2023

Waiting for dawn, I scan the holes in the clouds for meteors. The north side of the springhouse roof still wears a small blanket of snow—more like a thin sheet. Any small beast sleeping in the springhouse attic must be cold.

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12/12/2023

November 5, 2023
Overcast sunrise for the return to standard time. The restless footsteps of a buck below the house, carrying his rack of bare branches into the…
12/12/2023

November 5, 2022
Unseasonably warm with a lowering sky. A six-point buck emerges from the woods and struts over to the stream as a doe looks on.
12/12/2023

November 5, 2021
A lone crow like a town crier repeating the same bit of news: how the rising sun, newly naked, is ablaze beneath the crowns of…
12/12/2023

November 5, 2020
Mackerel sky like a furrowed brow. One, three, six blue jays descend on the feeder. The squirrel flees. One jay screams like a hawk.
12/12/2023

November 5, 2018
The big dead elm has collapsed into the stream, its rain-slick bole broken in two places. A drenched phoebe hawks insects in the grass.
12/12/2023

November 5, 2017
Fog and rain. The stream runs brown, as if to match the woods and meadow. The pink flamingo in my garden is looking distinctly out…
12/12/2023

November 5, 2016
A bright blue morning. The wail of sirens somewhere to the east—until the wind shifts and I hear nothing but the whispering of oaks.
12/12/2023

November 5, 2015
Warm morning after a cold night, and the oaks are shedding leaves: a dry sound as they hit lower branches, like the ticking of many…
12/12/2023

November 5, 2014
An inversion layer brings freight train and traffic noise to mix with rustling leaves, crow scold-calls, a chipmunk’s metronome. My music.
12/12/2023

November 5, 2013
Overcast and cold. Wind hissing in the dry goldenrod and rattling the half-bare crowns of the oaks. A distant crow.

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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

12/12/2023