photo by Roman Trifinov (unsplash)
Let go the pain you are holding After Joy Harjo This morning I walked my back garden, the air thick with lemons and ligustrum, a breathless night of fog horns and train whistles calling away the shadows,the sun shivering and glittering promises. My mind is quiet, clear of technology’s demands, notifications, buzzes, & bells, all the stuff that doesn’t matter anyway. I am tired of it, of its time-sapping nonsense & attention seeking, its lectures & lies. I will speak to the cardinal pair visiting the feeder, watch my little squirrel friend eating peanuts, water my collection of vegetables— a daily miracle of growth. I will remember what sustains me, what thrills me, what heals me. I will walk the earth in my spirit feet. * Inspired by “For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet” by Joy Harjo Each Day is Another Scar We place the russet pavers in the garden one by one in between discussions of surgical drainage, ct scans and ventilators. Six one day, four the next, none for a week when her fever rose, blood pressure dropped, and her white count was more than twice the normal value. I watch as the path grows longer and think a lot about the color of the pavers like the color of her heart, the toughness of the brick like the toughness of her character and the slow progression that mimics her daily life in ICU. The garden path and her path are intertwined, the physical toll scarring my hands, the emotional toll scarring my heart. Some Days start off heavy and never lighten up. Bones and spirit ache from years of giving and bending and lifting up, reminding me that I’m not a malleable 23 anymore. Some days, no matter my wants or intentions, I simply can not muster diplomacy, end up being blunt instead of kind then worry about it at 2 a.m. when sleep skulks in the shadows, an elusive stalker. Some days I can not make one more compromise, say one more smiley yes, wash one more dirty, smelly bathroom or even my dirty, smelly self. Some days the light is too bright, the dirt too deep, the smell of struggle too sharp for my migraine-filled head. Some days I hold hard to the horizon’s thin edge. Bio: Charlotte Hamrick’s poetry, prose, and photography has been published in numerous online and print journals, recently including Emerge Journal, Anti-Heroin Chic, Reckon Review, and New World Writing. She’s had nominations for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and was a Finalist for the 15th Glass Woman Prize and for Micro Madness 2020. She is Creative Nonfiction Editor for The Citron Review and reads flash fiction for Fractured Lit. She lives in New Orleans with her husband and a menagerie of rescued pets where she sometimes does things other than read and write. A Fevers of the Mind Quick-9 Interview with Charlotte Hamrick 3 New poems from Charlotte Hamrick: Holding On, Head Above Water, It is what it is
Fevers of the Mind 