Barbara J. Hamby

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My Poetry Muse Returns

Today I welcomed back my poetry muse. I just finished a poem in which I dumped my sad feelings because my dear friend of more than sixty years is dying.

Her email this morning told me she’d had a bad night last night. I stared at my computer screen for a long time, tears running. What should I say to her that might help?

For the last fifteen years, my writing has been my therapy. It is so once again.

I’m not ready to share my poem, “What Can I Say to My Friend Who is Dying,” just yet. I can’t even read it out loud, my usual method of proof reading.

After thinking long and hard, I wrote in my reply to her, “I hope the bad times are few and the good times overshadow the bad.”