Category: poetry

the evening hours

On By ©️K.T. 2026In Poem, poetryLeave a comment

i’m on the phone with her
i listen,
attentive to both the mundanity and gravity
of her daily tales and decadal recollections
i wait for the right words, the right pause to speak, which sometimes never comes/
she is always dilated, crowning or birthing new and old pain
but is abundantly fertile with ideas and pregnant with laughter too
i am a patient doula, never a midwife.
and suddenly, an hour, or more, is gone

dicing and mincing my holy quarternity, my mirepoix, my sofrito — to music or a lecture / sauté, season, blanche, stew, cook, boil, sear, bake, toss, assemble, plate, serve, eat, scrape, scrub, wash, dry, shelve, pack, store, clean and compost.
and suddenly, two — or more hours, are gone

i rush to the stoop hoping i haven’t missed the sweet spot between sunset and twilight/
i watch for the brown bats, i know they come from the west — from the bluff
their roost in remnant shagbark hickory,
and in hollows, i think about how there is no old growth left — hickory, beech, maple, oak, pine — once in primeval abundance,
hell, there are hardly even any old barns or attics left anymore — everyone wants a kennebunkport or grand beach compound, a summer, second or third home/
i am always buoyed at the bats’ arrival, entranced by their acrobatics, they are a living barometer: they’re still alive, still here – in spite of it, all.
and suddenly, an hour is gone

a spider weaves
a web between black walnut leaves
in the very last of light
my obsessive, awed witness of their movements
their silken threads, their physics, their engineering, their architecture
and suddenly, the hour, and light is gone

back on the stoop
i think about

who and what i Am


what i have
what i’ve lost

who i love

what’s past
what’s to come

what i’ll die for, who i’ll die for

what i live for, who i live for

i follow the thread of the patchwork of my quilted life
backward and forward til i reach the beautiful dark fabric of the universe, the alpha and omega
i take the ends, and fold it, and fold it again

i put it in my basket to carry inside and upstairs to my bedroom to envelope me.


the hours are nearly gone

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The Murder of an August Meadow

On By ©️K.T. 2026In August, Crone, crone chronicles, dirt road chronicles, ki, kin, Lament, Lamentations, plant beings, Poem, poetry, summer, symbiosity, wildlifeLeave a comment

full bloom,
milkweed, goldenrod, chicory,
aster,
thistle or teasel — i don’t know
they’re 7, 8, 9, feet tall
their leaf cups full of collected dew, or rain

the meadow is just all

give give give.

in fifteen minutes,
give or take,


all, gone
beneath a tractor blade

take, take, take,

take.

Continue reading “The Murder of an August Meadow” →

the mourning doves

On By ©️K.T. 2026In earthlings, human non-beings, hunters, hunting, ki, kin, Poem, poetry, wildlifeLeave a comment

i still surprise them
even after nearly six years of quiet-yet-unstealthy,
devotion to them

they’ve never once held their roost or kept their forage
upon my careful intrusion, upon my neutral presence
to maybe know of me
to maybe trust of me

their survival instinct is so strong
but i still take umbrage,
playful, but umbrage, nonetheless

then i remember Nemerov’s words about their feathers
in our caps, our pillows, our coats
“The Distances They Keep,”
then i remember Kimmerer’s words about
the aweing ubiquity and incredible extinction of the Omimi,
Martha the Last, died 109 years ago come September,
then i read how happy fields of sunflowers are cultivated to serve as bait traps for dove hunters at my beloved Starved Rock – after all the lovely fall engagement and high school senior photo shoots wind down,
and of those who cruelly suggest their flesh is quite delicious

there is no honorable harvest among the descendants of thieves, of colonizers, of settlers, of “homesteaders” — i know this.

so, my god, yes,

stay shy, stay distant, dear doves,

there are many reasons, that i stay shy, stay distant, and in mourning too, but none as good as theirs

addendum poem:

“dove,”
what a lovely name for a gentle bird
what a lovely name for a newly-born girl
what a terrible name for a woman in this world

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beach OBE

On By ©️K.T. 2026In Alchemy, crone chronicles, grandmother, liminal, metaphysical, out-of-body experience, Poem, poetry, waterLeave a comment

i Am revisiting the significance of this poem — first published on my former Tumblr site [kimtn.tumblr.com] in August 2012 and one of the first intentional poems i ever composed

this poem is derived from my near-drowning and out-of-body experience [OBE] when i was about three years old at a beach near Waukegan, Illinois while under the brief watch of my Finnish-American paternal grandmother, Dolores “Babe” Laine (shortened from Kumpulainen) who was often drunk

i am actually lucky that this near-drowning happened to me — and at such a tender age; my out-of-body experience imprinted on me and left me with the capacity to be open to, recognize and receive other metaphysical and liminal experiences throughout my life, and is absolutely part of the origin story for The Limineen and its previous incarnation as the “Accidental Seeker & Intentional Opiner”

beach obe

I open my eyes and ochre water’s all around

I’m underneath, but I’m not scared,

I still see golden sunlight too

I see your legs; you’ve let me go

and I think I’m down here all alone

I hear voices, but I can’t breathe

So I leave, I’m off to explore

But wait, there’s me! – that’s my face!

Do you see, that somehow now, there’s two of me?!

you finally see — the first me
you slowly raise her up

She coughs and breathes;

and the other me, She goes, She floats away

But, which one Am i?

now, i’m not sure

Am i real, or was it She?

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fulcrums

On By ©️K.T. 2026In Poem, poetry, summer, WyomingLeave a comment

pinpoint the moment,
the fulcrum,
where verdant green life
slips into hot summer crackle,
Sun-steeped leaves
aromatic, chamomile-like
parched beneath our feet
all those places where a hose will never reach,
a scent in your nose
reminiscent of a birthday hike
on switchbacks
to stand properly on, and in the shadow of,
“The Grand”,
a surprise, teal, glistening alpine lake.
was that the time he dove from the rock like a young god, an Adonis?
all those trips to Wyoming in August, in June,

begin to merge into one core memory,
like a hunk of young granite forged
and carried down in rock slide
then, carried all the way down to the valley, in my pocket
for him, to give to him, on his birth day.
i ran down that mountain like a gazelle, way ahead of them
it was the fastest and freest i have ever felt in all my life, truly
and, i astounded them, all, — and mostly myself.


then, a long, quiet drive back to
a newly dog-less city house
how did this all happen in one June, one August, or — was it two?
then,
the first time i felt a chill in months,
a different kind of crunch underfoot
the wind rained down
a carpet of leaves all about, in an instant

just as they appeared at birth,
all golden again,
but different, wiser,

a frost sets in.

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weeds, july

On By ©️K.T. 2026In Crone, Crone Consciousness, july, kin, Poem, poemo, poet, poetry, summer, The Trickster, TricksterLeave a comment

while washing dinner dishes
a hummingbird surprised me
feeding on a milk thistle
them overgrown “weeds” just outside my window

you see, it’s not just about my garden that i tend to
but about the things i leave alone,
that i let go,

that i let grow wild, too

//

i didn’t get the photo, my hands were too wet with soap
yet i really wanted you to know about this, really, to know this, about us, both

you see, we, errant human weeds, you need us too,
we’ll prick your finger
we’ll quench your thirst
we’ll tell you truths

up close & personal
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night falls, late july

On By ©️K.T. 2026In agraria, Arte Agraria, Arte Bucolia, Arte Ruralia, bucolia, Crone, earthlings, Garden of Eden, ki, kin, nightfall, outer rural, Poem, poet, poetry, ruralia, witchLeave a comment

nightfall
proceeds like this

small rodentia head under, in or up,
mourning doves perform a vigorous last forage,
hummingbirds, always reliable for last call, drink up/
rabbits boldly show out in numbers to spaghetti-slurp dandelion, plantain and clover stems/
barn and tree swallows own the lower troposphere

red-winged blackbirds
cardinals, and robins
in that exact order
loudly call everyone home for the night

the air surrenders to insects,
the sky — to bats, beautifully acrobatic /hey!/
cottonwood or black walnut trees will host owls on supremely, rare summer evenings

moths, beetles take the lamps
frogs take the sidewalks, steps, stoop,
walls, windows,
and eventually, the lamps too/
toads pace and post sentry on barn thresholds

deer passage through — or bed down
in the tall unmowed grasses, now properly – a prairie, a meadow,
natural salt licks — and halved, quartered and whole apples,
are my selfishly generous lures ’til autumn’s own bounty

coyotes herald the Moon
or the first dark train,
depending on the phase,

lightning bugs mimic eye-level stars,
golden-gold like our Sun and in asynchronous temporary constellations

raccoons strategize, then raid, but i know to expect them now
possums about their business — quiet, slow, sweet — these, my dear ones, stay a while, please

cricketsong
errant cicadas, what year is it, again?
and incessant croaking, banjoing, ribbitting

fog may appear,
then settle — or lift,

or maybe the night is sultry, still or clear

Continue reading “night falls, late july” →

venus 𝖗𝖃

On By ©️K.T. 2026In Poem, poet, poetryLeave a comment

and she and i were out of sync
and he and i were out of sync
and the crows and i were out of sync
and he and i were out of sync

and she and i were out of sync

and he and i were out of sync

and we were all,
out of sync

but mostly, i Am out of sync

so i stepped back,
and out,
then forward, and back, yet again,
then circled,
and waited,

waded, treaded, floated

it

out

to keep from

sinking