Poetry | Cethramtu rannaigechta moire
Peace Maker
A tribute to my soul sister
Friend for life Soul sister salvation peace maker
Rose garden memories Soul sister you’re my peace
© Carolyn Hastings 2021
It’s not the first time I’ve written about my soul sister, Lynda. In fact, I wrote about her last week in The Volcano That Learned to Cry.
Lynda is my soul sister. She’s also my heavenly muse.
You might have noticed the caption under the header image. Soul Sister. It’s the name of the rose I planted in my backyard soon after Lynda passed away in January 2019. The rose is uncannily Lynda. I wrote about it last year in this piece called, Soul Sister.
Lynda was a peace maker. But she was also a fighter. Especially in situations where she felt injustice had been served. Lynda knew a lot about injustice. She came face-to-face with it all the time. In her work. In her community. In her church. In her personal life. Her motivation in calling out injustice was always to find peace. A meeting place in the middle where friction was least.
And so I find myself during times of friction (thank you covid lockdowns) seeking the solace and peace of the place beside my rose. A place where I can soothe my jangled nerves, and smoothe my furrowed brow. A place where I can reclaim myself, and think of what Lynda would have done. I’ve made a place of peace for my peace-making soul sister and me. 💞
It also brings me peace that I’ve actually caught up on Sahil Patel’s poetry challenge! This is my response to his Day 22 prompt: write a poem about a thing/person/place that gives you peace in your life. 🙏
The poem that I’ve written is a curious little number known as a cethramtu rannaigechta moire. Please don’t ask me how to pronounce it! It’s Irish and translates into something to do with quarter divisions, which, despite being Irish, actually makes sense! 😆 🍀 💚
A cethramtu rannaigechta moire is a type of quatrain — a four line verse with an xaxa rhyme scheme (where x represents unrhymed lines) and each line consists of three syllables.
You can forgive yourself if you’ve never heard of this form of poetry. I hadn’t either until Somsubhra Banerjee tagged me into Literary Impulse’s Uncommon Poetic Forms poetry challenge which is running through to the end of August. You can learn more about the challenge here -
Thank you, Somsubhra for the opportunity to extend my poetic repertoire. Thank you also to you, Priyanka Srivastava, Elisabeth Khan and Nachi Keta at Literary Impulse for accepting this piece into your publication. 🙏 💕
I’m wondering if some of my Irish brethren would be interested in giving a cethramtu rannaigechta moire a try. I’m thinking of you — James G Brennan, Orla Kenny, Denise Larkin — and any others among us with Irish heritage — or any other sort of heritage for that matter i.e. everyone! 😊 💕
Lastly, thank you to William J Spirdione who has tagged me two or three times into this challenge. Your persistence, kind sir, has paid off! 🙏 💕
Here are a couple of William’s ‘uncommon poetry’ pieces for your enjoyment.
Thank you all for reading. 🙏 💕 🙏