Poetry | Tribute

My Heavenly Muse

Oh where would I be without her

I close my eyes and see her face It’s the second last time I saw her

Short, cropped silver-white hair starched neat as a pin like the plumped pillows piled up to support her

Bilirubin-tanned skin more brown than sallow yellow a healthy shade of unhealthy strangely it suits her

Deep dark hazelnut eyes Lindt melted chocolate luminous with love for all those around her

A blur of strained faces come into my view family, friends, dear ones who all adore her

I lift her thin hand from the weave of the bed sheet marvel at the radiant warmth Life still alight inside her

“I’m doing okay I don’t have any pain I’m ready to go back to my Maker.”

She squeezes my hand There’s strength yet in her grip “I love you,” she says “I’ll love you forever.”

© Carolyn Hastings 2023

Dedicated to my forever-friend, Lynda, my soul sister who passed away on Australia Day, January 26th 2019.

It’s taken me over four years to write this poem. That’s how long it’s been since Lynda left us to live our lives without her. Except she never really left because I only need close my eyes and I can see her. 💛

She’s not always in the hospital bed like she is in the scene in my poem. Sometimes she’s sitting in a café with me drinking coffee — she liked her latte extra hot and then would take two hours to drink it! Sometimes we’re together on a rough-hewn bench beside the Yarra River at Warburton. Sometimes she’s dancing with her husband — she loved him so much, and he her. Lynda loved Lindt chocolate — and mascara, too!

It’s not as if I haven’t written about Lynda before — I have — quite a number of times — but until now, I’ve never written about the last time she and I spoke — in the flesh, that is. It’s been something I’ve wanted to keep to myself. Something precious and sacred, all mine.

It’s kind of weird because I make no secret of the fact that Lynda is my heavenly muse. So much of my writing has been a collaborative effort. She spirits words into my consciousness and then eggs me on, ‘Give me more, give me more. You can do it.’

She gave me the first two lines of this poem and told me to run with it. So I did. I got to the last line, read what I’d written and cried. She was there with me. She didn’t try to comfort me. She said, ‘See, I told you, you could do it’, and let me cry.

Oh, Lynda, where would I be without you. 💛

Besides Lynda, I have a few people to credit for this poem coming to light at this point in time. In his May prompt, Kallol Mazumdar asked us to ‘spill’ our hearts into the topic: “Why does my muse linger on my memory?”

Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她) tagged me into her prompt: emotions, and then more recently, Wry Welwood in his new role as prompt creator at Scrittura, tagged me to ‘write a poem inspired by powerful joy and/or sorrow in your life. Focus on the event, circumstances, or memory and let the words flow.’

To be perfectly frank, I gave each prompt serious consideration but was somehow disinclined to take any of them further — at least not right away. I felt like I’d written enough sad stories already this year, and the joyous moments have been somewhat fleeting or tinged with their own shade of sadness.

Lynda had other ideas! 💛

Thank you for being here. 🙏 💕

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