December greetings!
Here come the holidays! I'm thinking of them as if I'm approaching a big rapid in my small boat. I hear the roaring in the distance, then it's louder... and louder. I have a look from the top, plan my run, take a deep breath... and I'm in it.
Hope we're all be breathing through the holidays!
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Contents of This Newsletter
1. New vocal-guitar video. (It's a miracle that I made one!)
2. My next Music–Culture–Food Tour
3. Dates for my 2026 Ireland tour
4. Song of the Month: The New Agrarians' "Borders"
5. Wisdom for the season from Richard Rohr
6. Poem of the Month: “My Sister”
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1. I've made a vocal-guitar song video!
A month ago I was invited by a small private group of Asheville, NC songwriters to be their guest-writer-of-the-month.
Each month the group’s members are required to write a song from a single word prompt–and then to video a performance to share with the group.
The November prompt was the word “bridge.” Being a procrastinator, I recorded it with my phone at the eleventh hour. It's called Bridge to Nowhere, and if you'd like to watch it, here's the YouTube link:
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2. Next fall's second Music–Culture–Food Tour
Our maiden Nashville to Memphis to the Mississippi Delta voyage wrapped a month ago, and it was everything my manager Shauna Jamison and I had hoped for.
No firm dates yet for next fall, but if you're curious or interested, please email Shauna at shauna(at)tomkimmel(dot)com. She can answer your questions, send you a sample itinerary etc.
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3. Dates & more for my 2026 Ireland tour
Our tour company doesn't start taking reservations till February, but the tours sell out early, so here's what we have planned:
When: Wednesday, June 24 to Friday, July 3, 2026
Where: Counties Cork, Kerry & Clare
Reservations: Inishfree Tours begins taking reservations this coming February
For much more on the tour (and the tours in general), visit my Ireland page:
And for more on Inishfree Tours:
https://www.inishfreetours.
My 2025 tour is sold out.
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4. Song of the Month: The New Agrarians' "Borders"
Borders is one of my favorite songs on our record. There's a porous musical boundary and odd spiritual connection between Tennessee and Texas. This song speaks to that, but it also speaks to me of other borders, boundaries and fences calling for us to cross over.
Stream it from my home page:
Or download from there for 99¢.
And you can stream it from Apple Music, Spotify et al.
The New Agrarians: Pierce Pettis, Kate Campbell and me.
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5. Wisdom for our time from Richard Rohr
“We can't see love itself but we can see what happens to those who have been loved."
—Richard Rohr (b. 1943), Franciscan priest and writer priest & writer
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6. Poem of the Month: My Sister
I've shared this one a few times, but as it's a Christmas story of sorts, I'm revisiting it.
My Sister
My sister Helen sang Christmas carols
even in the summertime;
she was weird like that.
Once she ate a whole
stick of butter. And once,
I guess because she was told
not to, she stuck her arm
right in Bubba’s big window fan.
You had to keep an eye on her.
If my sister was last at the table
she would likely hide what was left
of her peas and rice under the rug,
and once a fossilized sandwich
was found in her Sunday purse.
Mama says that whereas I would
tell the truth when a lie would’ve
saved me from a whipping, Helen
would tell a lie when the truth
would’ve gotten her out of trouble.
Fact: My sister was much smaller than I was
and thus extremely susceptible to torture.
At various times I:
—locked her out of the house
in the snow wearing
only her pajamas
—stuffed her upside down
in a garbage can
—placed a large dead spider
in her open mouth
while she slept in the back seat
on our way to the beach.
But here’s the story of the meanest thing
I ever did to her:
My sister wanted a horse
more than anything in the world.
She asked for one each birthday and Christmas,
and as every birthday and Christmas approached
she was told that Mama and Bubba and Santa Claus
were very sorry, but that you just can’t
have a horse if you live in town, and so on.
Still, this was implausible to Helen and
she continued to dream as she played
with her toy horses, drew pictures of horses,
wore her cowgirl outfit, pretended to be a horse,
wrote Santa faithfully each year
(starting around July), till one Christmas morning
when she was six and I was eight, I had a terrible idea:
I ran to the back window and yelled,
Helen! Helen! Look what’s tied to the tree!
* * *
My sister has long since
forgiven me for this and for countless
other crimes and trespasses,
but I can tell you without a doubt that
I have not forgiven myself
for this particular transgression.
Therapy and prayer have alleviated other regrets,
but somehow I still imagine myself before the Judge
being told, Son, there’s a difference between
a practical joke and a sin, and there are sins
for which there is no remedy, for which penance
is ineffective—for certain acts set worlds in motion
that will spin eternally, worlds of dark secrets
from which you will never be free.
These days, when the family banter starts up
about our childhood pranks and follies
I inevitably remember that Christmas morning,
and if the story is told I hold my breath and sweat it out.
So my prayer now is not for the gift of remorse.
I have that; I’ve had it for years now, certainly.
What I need is no less than a re-write of history,
a chance to undo what began with great force.
I imagine a world where dark fact becomes fantasy,
and fantasy fades from a gray sky to blue—
where a wish is a seed taking root in reality.
Merry Christmas, dear Helen, may your dreams all come true.
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Till next month, Maximum Peace Love & Understanding,
TK
PS Thanks always to the folks at Elixir Strings for keeping me playing the world's best strings for over 25 years.
