Catherine Hamrick

“The naming of cats” by T.S. Eliot (why I call my cat kitty-kitty-kitty)

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter, It isn’t just one of your holiday games; You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES. First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily, Such […]

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

“Song” by James Joyce

My love is in a light attire Among the apple trees, Where the gay winds do most desire To run in companies. There, where the gay winds stay to woo The young leaves as they pass, My love goes slowly, bending to Her shadow on the grass. And where the […]

Estimated reading time: 45 seconds

Word perfect: “winter trees” by william carlos williams

All the complicated details of the attiring and the disattiring are completed! A liquid moon moves gently among the long branches. Thus having prepared their buds against a sure winter the wise trees stand sleeping in the cold.

Estimated reading time: 19 seconds

Photographer shares the world from every perspective. Wordless wonder!

The Endless Beauty of Stairs, Books, and Knowledge . . . Follow the vertical story by Sandstorm Click.

Estimated reading time: 7 seconds

My Other Blog: Random Storyteller

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.

To My Mother: Origami Storm

Although I previously published a version of this poem, I revised it with a certain precision—in keeping with my mom’s handiwork. A science major turned homemaker, she lived joyfully and creatively. I opened cereal boxes upside down And absently stuck them on a fridge shelf, Defying the precision strokes of my mom, The domestic engineer […]