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The views expressed on this blog are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of other organizations with which the author is associated.

Copyright: all content on this blog belongs to Catherine Hamrick (Random Storyteller) except for content specifically attributed to others. You may repost or republish an excerpt from a blog post or page by meeting the following terms:

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My Other Blog: Random Storyteller

The New Orange (on a False Fall Day)

In the dead of August, A few leaves yellow-scuttled yards Unready for rakes, autumn’s casual brush by— A 68-degree flirt with sweater weather after a fine rain. In a deeper South, the Amazon burned; The slideshow played, a frame or two, On a small screen, swiped by android thumbs Tracking the finer points of the […]

The Shadow of My Father’s Beard

It’s the small things, After a person is gone, That keep him alive, For a time, The things unnoticed Until they rise Out of memory’s grave. My father’s beard, Always a shadow, Even at 5 a.m., Briefly bristled my cheek, While my mother Lilted, “Rise and shine,” In the dark Of day number four […]

My Father on D-Day: Why Do You Ask This?

They made movies of our memories,

Of what they thought they were:

German mortar and exploding artillery,

The strewn wreckage

Of flipped, ripped jeeps,

Of wire,

Of bodies, whole, some with faces yet,

Of twitching pieces, arms here and legs flung there,

Of middle parts, spilling guts, oozing.

What was I thinking?

The sea foams, so does blood.

Then my hands did the thinking, and doing, on semi-automatic,

What the doctor ordered:

Stanch bleeding,

Apply dressings,

Sprinkle sulfa powder,

The lone wound antiseptic.

And dwindle the morphine—

On who has the best chance?

The hands became the machine

That patched the broken living and passed them to other hands

That stretchered them up the ramp.

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