Dave Bonta

Neither as cold nor as clear as recent mornings, with the sun thinly veiled by atmospheric murk. The golden-leaved tulip tree in the yard looks duller now than it did in the full moonlight at 4:00 a.m.

With most of the forest understorey bare, one can see so much more through the trees: a full moon setting in the west, a flock of geese, the white tail of a deer retreating like a ghost into the dark mountain laurel bushes.

Clear and cold. A few minutes before sunrise, with crows already noising about, a pair of screech owls start duetting up on the ridge, fierce high tremolos descending into tender trills.

fallen leaves for currency my shadow's share #haiku #haiga

and to all of creation.

Clear and still. Noise from the valley dies down as the sun climbs the sky and destroys the inversion layer. I notice every crack between the boards on the porch floor is jammed with tulip tree samaras.

"October's bright blue weather" continues. As it warms up, I take great, greedy breaths of the autumn air, laden with geosmin and other earthy compounds associated with fermentation and decay. A mid-morning blast from the limestone quarry two miles away shakes the house.

I've always been, and remain, adamantly opposed to getting social media notifications on my pocket umbilicus. If I occasionally wander off and fail to respond for a few days, that'd be the reason.

Sun strikes the porch roof and it begins to drip, even as two patches of frost linger in the yard. A blue jay in the crown of a large scarlet oak manages to convince the bird app that it's a hawk.

With my hearing back after a day of earwax removal, I listen to white-throated sparrows singing in two different keys, the sun's silent wheel progressing alone on its wide blue road.

Cold and clear with heavy frost. A small hawk hurtles over the house as crows call in the distance. The western ridge turns brick-red with sunrise.

Clear and still, the yard silvery with frost. Each morning the woods are more open, the patches of sky more numerous. The sun-flooded forest of winter doesn't seem so far away now.

My reflections on the poetry hustle included in this week’s roundup. Remember, Dave reads everything so you don’t have to… but it’s well worth a sift through this selection…

Overcast and cold. A white-throated sparrow sings in the wind. Kinglets forage, fluttering and wheezing, through the golden crown of a black birch.

Yellow leaves falling in the fog. A chipmunk runs onto the porch, sees me and stops short, with a walnut larger than its head between its teeth.

The rising sun appears through new holes in the forest understory just after it tops the ridge. Crows and jays are in an uproar over a young peregrine falcon, who hangs around for a couple of hours, periodically giving chase to its most obnoxious persecutors until they all find better things to do…

Warm and breezy at sunrise. One katydid is still calling, as if reluctant to see the end of what could be the katydids' last big party night of the year. Two yellow walnut leaves land on my laptop.

Soft sunlight through high atmospheric haze. Dew drips from the roof. The forest glows orange and yellow as spring peepers call from the leaf litter.

Blue holes open and close in the clouds. Gray squirrels continue to sound the alarm for a long-gone hawk as the tulip sapling in my yard dances in the wind.

Hard, steady rain since the wee hours, but the crows still show up to yell from the top of the tallest tree at what would be sunrise.​

fireflies in my dream house there are no walls #haiku #monoku

Sun through thin clouds at mid-morning. A suppressed burble of wren-song from the woods' edge. Yellow leaves festoon the reddening stiltgrass in the yard.

reading in the woods a falling leaf taps me on the shoulder #haiku

Clear but not as cold. The shadows of three silent, low-flying geese cross the porch as a larger flock to the south provides the soundtrack of goose music.

oh god, don’t make me start giving a shit about the nobel prize again! I’m glad they’ve crowned their poet of the decade & that she’s a great one. now I get to watch poets & poetry lovers being pathetically grateful that our weird kink has been recognized, however briefly, as culturally significant

Clear, cold, and loud with highway noise due to an inversion layer. Dead-center in my view from the porch, I spot a mile-a-minute vine in the lilac that I somehow missed and walk down to rip it out, blue berries spilling into the weeds.

The coldest morning of the autumn so far, but no frost. Pileated woodpeckers yammer in the distance as the sun climbs through golden leaves toward the moon's thin grin.

More clouds than sun, with walnut trees undressing in the wind, and the leaves on the porch turning over like restless sleepers. The periodic bang of a walnut landing on the back roof is loud as a gunshot.

intriguing trailer www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY_8... #Musk

“Distinctions between worlds are fine.” A poem by Karen Solie.

Overcast at dawn. A great-horned owl calls in the distance. A train horn at the Plummer Hollow crossing blows a major-key chord with a passing resemblance to the old Windows start-up music.

in Act 2 of Cosi Fan Tutte, and guys, I don't think it's going to pass the Bechdel Test

Cold and clear before dawn. I lean forward to tie my boots in the light of the half moon, then sit back in deep shadow. A barred owl calls once, twice. Orion lies on his side above the ridge—a hunter half out of bed on this, the opening day of deer season.

Breezy and warmish with a few thin, high clouds. A fly walks slowly across the open document on my laptop. From up in the woods, the plaintive call of a spring peeper already attuning himself for next spring, as his body prepares for months of dormancy under the leaf duff.