Seasons of Grief in “The Tears of Things” https://ift.tt/OdA1Tk8
Catherine Hamrick’s The Tears of Things is a collection of poetry that shares detailed portrayals of both physical and emotional landscapes. Hamrick’s collection is organized into sections that correspond to the four seasons, starting with winter. The closing chapter is an additional fifth season, which acts as a summation.
The collection explores elements of grief, which is often described as having five stages. The chapters don’t show progression, necessarily, through these stages. This equates to how bereavement can be a nonlinear process. In this collection, the last chapter and fifth season’s poetry features modicums of acceptance, as outlined in her final poem, At Sunrise: Metta Meditation, which imparts a sense of peace, begins with the words,
In stillness at sunrise,
I slide bloodstone beads
between my fingers,
counting nothing-
The poetry, unexpectedly, eschews spring as a start and instead commences in winter. Descriptions that are visceral — the cold, darkness and stark places alluding to sadness and quiet tears. This is perhaps where someone’s grief might also start, after having suffered loss. In the poem In Night of the Insistent Moon Hamrick writes,
Winter’s beat went arrhythmic, and I lost
count to rain crystals pattering panes,
Hamrick’s language is unusual and amplifies sad beauty. Rather than speaking directly of the heart, freezing winter presses in on the heart in arrhythmia, the word ‘lost’ enjambed to highlight the feeling. The use of sounds with ‘pattering panes,’ bringing us back to the soft sound of a heart, and ‘rain’ a reminder of tears. It’s easy to imagine feeling them rolling down a cheek. The two opening lines of the poem set the stage for sorrow throughout this section.
Hamrick’s collection continues with a burst of energy described in the poetry in the spring chapter. Even so, there are tinges of nostalgia. Within the movement of each poem, there are ever sad reminders, such as a memory creating dark edges in the emotional tone. The first poem in this chapter is 642 Square Feet (Apartment Therapy). Sifting through old items,
Mom wedged ranch unchic into that fallout tumble
after family heirlooms turned up at her door.
Eventually, these memories and items are packed up. Beloved belongings, gone from the last generation, give way to the next generation. Like when winter gives way to spring. Reminders of how time moves ahead, and old things pass away.
Journeys around my room, yet my heirs will thank me
for the U-Haul load downsized four decades early.
The spring section is also filled with poetry that highlights nature, birds, flowers and more reminders of new beginnings as other things are being packed away.
The poetry of summer describes nature, often as if it were artwork. This both benefits from her detailed descriptions, while balancing it with enough detachment to serve as a reminder that this is a collection centered around loss.
In the poem Chattahoochee: Songs I Never Heard Until Now, a description of Canada geese segues to questions left unasked of a mother.
I draw sharp breath, rocked by the grade
of a flock, heads erect, paddling sideways
and honking, tugged southward, and mourn
the questions never asked of my mother:
Hamrick demonstrates a parallel between beautiful yet commonly seen creatures that are often unnoticed and the details that we lose through conversations never had with loved ones. Just as we contemplate where geese fly away to, out of reach, in the sky, like the opportunities for deeper connections that disappear, barely noticed at the time.
Fall is a season naturally given to contemplation of decay and the readying for hibernation. Also, a time when it’s natural to see trees losing leaves in brilliant color and the noting of the change in the weather.
Blue Ridge Weather Report expresses these sentiments,
Canada comes, you announce, cooling
the Blue Ridge in chlorophyll-starved
splendor, blazing sourwood and black gum
yellowing hickories and tulip trees,
dashing maroon and russet on oaks,
firing orange across sassafras.
This poem showcases Hamrick’s attention to detail through different senses. The ‘blazing sourwood’ a reminder of the uniquely flavored honey in that region. And sassafras bringing the sense of cinnamon flavors, without resorting to cliché, as well as speaking to home remedies and comfort. Visualization of colors and the use of sounds, such as ‘dashing’ and ‘firing,’ words with multiple meanings and associations. She conveys a sense of a final blaze of glory. Fall evokes both preparation for the coming winter and the coming conclusion of opportunities to view the spectacle, before it’s gone altogether.
The last stanza,
Frost pales the trees and things chirping,
whirring call-and-response night song.
I grieve the rasping choir without you,
look for the farmer’s geese, snowy flecks
in a browning yard, but he has sold them,
and the gate squeaks, half-open.
The poem comes to a natural end, already having primed senses to hear sounds both present, fading, and already absent.
Instead of being a place to put poems that didn’t fit elsewhere, the final chapter, “The Fifth Season,” creates both a summation and a sense of afterthought. This ends the collection with an unhurried and timeless feeling. Just like seasons bring about a natural full circle, this collection creates wistfulness and a desire to start again at the beginning. This, in order to once again immerse in Hamrick’s balancing of detailed descriptions, while holding a throughline of melancholy and release.
POETRY The Tears of Things
By Catherine Hamrick
Madville Publishing
Published January 18, 2025
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