fire sign – Catherine Hamrick

Autumn Annunciation

400x400 px-Autumn Annunication quote 1 from poem by Catherine Hamrick chamrickwriter

1 A boy-cut scraped my neck, And September’s rays pinked it In time for the equinox, But the trees sneezed green. Yesterday our Christmas came, Undecking a failed debate— Fairy lights or jeweled bulbs? We unrolled nameless trinkets And glass balls from creped tissue, The dead skin of unmerry truth. […]

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

My Other Blog: Random Storyteller

Thank you, Mom, for your simple song

Yet I remember the constant of my mother’s life. What would she have said about the stream of articles and newscasts that warn of tribalism cracking apart lifelong relationships at the Thanksgiving table? I imagine a sensible answer: “That’s a choice—to allow the fear, grudges, insults, and cruelty of the disgruntled to violate home and hearth.” All her life, she forgave those who hurt her—with the gentle capacity to truly let go.

Fall Leavings

Canada comes, Cooling the Blue Ridge leaf by leaf, Bronze, copper, and scarlet flame While the morning moon burns white in blue. Umber splotches rosy dogwood, And birds snatch at candy-berry clusters. My face upturns to catch the sun’s glow Through lidded eyes. The wind stirs twigs and branches, Brushing leaves back and forth, And […]

Saturday Martini: To My Best Friend (somewhere in Pueblo, Colorado)

Late October light slants, stingy at 6 p.m. I will fall back in early November For an extra hour of shadow time, Of cool sleep, a false gain against the loss Of afternoon gold and blinks into azure bliss Where contrails etch high-flown ice-crystal beauty. You showed me fragments, quickening a wakefulness Within my darkened […]