Tag: Winter

Her Light, her light

On By ©️K.T. 2025In moon, Poem, poetry, wildlifeLeave a comment

it’s mid evening
east of The Lake
and the night is dawning
like a second morning

the Full Moon’s light
in a clearer sky
gleams through the generous panes
of this blessed, old green house

Moon’s rise / Her Light

February’s Snow Moon is glowing
in a familiar dance with her beloved Earth//


Sun, their invisible chaperone, is voyeur to their touchless, perfect tango

a family of four deer
mother and children, i think/
are gleaners here tonight
while i consume their Moon play

silent and sitting in the dark, i admire:
coat, tallow, hooves and warm flow of blood
is all that’s between them
and this howling wind and frozen ground

let me mimic their resilience, integrity
i’ve been so weak, so broken this winter
a fractioned shadow, i am disintegrating, disappearing / my light given or grifted away

Continue reading “Her Light, her light” →

thaw

On By ©️K.T. 2025In Poem, poetry, WinterLeave a comment

i add my most intentional breaths to the land, to the atmosphere,
for the birch sapling, for a man i knew,
both, bent over
frozen
in a forced deference
mimicking reverence
it won’t, can’t, hold
[it never does]

with every exhalation
my pink lungs
conjure warm winds
from red blood cells
incanting
under my tender palate
over my dormant tongue,
though my worn enamel
beyond my hermit lips:

Continue reading “thaw” →

Feed the wildlife! (a radical imperative)

On By ©️K.T. 2025In Essay, Intentional Opiner, Narrative, reciprocity, WinterLeave a comment

I set out natural stone salt-licks year-round for deer on the perimeter of the land I occupy [I’ve witnessed birds, and I suspect other wildlife enjoy/require them too].

I buy bags of apples on sale and try to set out 5 lbs a couple evenings per week for the deer during winter; I cut up a few for possums and rabbits nightly. I set out all spent fruit too, rather than composting.

Deer in the full Wolf Moon’s light
January 28, 2021
A deer foraging not on apples I set out, but on “weeds” – wildflowers, herbs and grasses
just beneath the triptych picture windows of my living room as I went to open the drapes to let in the Full Moon’s light – just before retiring to bed.

I feel like the salt lick, the small sweet apples and fruit scraps are my insignificant attempt at respect, alms, honoring and reparations for all we have destroyed — and for the survivors who endure and remain in the middle of a cold winter. This is agro country, and not a speck of corn or fruit is left behind for wild animals in the barren cornfields and orchards that were once forests filled with acorns, walnuts, pine nuts, pawpaws and twigs — and prairies filled with grasses, herbs, seeds and wildflowers.

Continue reading “Feed the wildlife! (a radical imperative)” →
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residuum

On By ©️K.T. 2025In Earthling, ki, kin, Life and Death, nature, Poem, poetry, reciprocity, Survival, symbiosity, wildlife, WinterLeave a comment
“The Distances They Keep”, Howard Nemerov, the blue swallows, 1967

this is no time
to evict
centipedes,
spiders,
the occasional, lone
boxelder bug,
dozens of out-of-season ladybird beetles
or
the almost-always odorless stinkbugs

from
our houses

to do so now means certain death, outside

Continue reading “residuum” →
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With a tail as big as a kite. With a tail as big as a kite.

On By ©️K.T. 2025In Animals, Beauty, Christmas, Christmas Eve, Death, Funerary, Life and Death, Poem, poeme, poetry, spirit, spirits, Survival, Uncategorized, WinterLeave a comment

She strained her eyes
what is that dark lump
in the road
traveling into my throat

Out she went
sighting the black beauty
from fifty paces
nearer, the bright blood
pooling beneath ki’s face

Did he even try to brake
or swerve?
“no”, the tracks and trees say

Maybe the driver didn’t see
the pitch black, moving body
against the snowy white, otherwise red dirt road?

Maybe ki darted out,
in front of the royal blue truck
a truck fit for a rural king
[doubt of the beneficent on Christmas]

machines
everywhere
machines

carssawsgunsplowsshipsplanesmillstractorsthrowersdozerstruckscombines
boatsturbinesrigsdredgerstrainsbargesroadsrailharborspipeshousesbridges
wellshighwayssewersstructuresquarriesreactorspowerlinesstreetslotsculde
sacsfencessatelliteslockscelltowerssignsculvertswallsdockslandfillsdams

she gently pincers the end of ki’s gorgeous black tail
gingerly pulling kin off the road
redundantly committing ki’s spirit
to the universe, aloud
with apologies for humankind, silently

purposefully committing kin’s body
to a safer spot
for mourning
and carrion feast

Ki’s body was unexpectedly heavy
full of walnuts and seeds
fat and strong for a long winter ahead
so alive just minutes ago, I saw out the window

I’m sorry
I’m sorry
for me
for my kind
for our machines
for our structures
for our carelessness
for our selfishness
for all this,
engineered, manufactured, destroyed

the falling snow christens quick

she wanted to go inside
and sob
selfishly,
because the possibility
of an aberrantly painless holyday
ceased with the dead black squirrel Continue reading “With a tail as big as a kite. With a tail as big as a kite.” →