Category Archives: grieving

Poems for Jenny Cooper

Chicago Botanic Garden Copyright 2016 MDMikus

Chicago Botanic Garden, Copyright 2016 MDMikus

A few years ago, I connected on Facebook with Jenny Cooper, another member of Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir. She had a breast cancer diagnosis and I sent her my book, As Easy as Breathing: Reclaiming Power for Healing and Transformation, to help if it could. (I wrote the book during my own cancer journey.) She was in her thirties with a loving husband, Chris, and two young sons. She became a vigorous online presence, healthcare advocate and educator, putting up vivid, honest videos of her ongoing journey. Jenny chose to life fully in every way. Despite aggressive treatment, her cancer returned and continued  to grow.

She went on hospice this summer and is now dying. I wrote these poems in the last few months in support and condolence, to help me as much as anyone. (My youngest sister was also dealing with stage 4 cancer, but is holding on at this point.) I stayed connected with both Jenny and her husband as she declined. I do not know why things happen as they do, but I do know that life has meaning. Jenny’s life touched so many and will continue to.

8/8/16

For Jenny Cooper
and Chris

In the mist
of dying
is the living
compressed

A hand to hold
is everything
a witness
to all of it

What is meaning
anyway, but
knowing you will be
missed

One way you leave
other ways you stay
no way to not be
remembered

Your own personal
flavor of immortality
your peace-heart
expanding out to the sky

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2016

 

8/25/16

For Jenny—One of Our Virtual Choir Family

What did you think
the end would look like?
Not this pain and suffering
more medications not covering
more drugged sleeping.

The bubble you live in
becoming smaller and smaller
time with husband and boys shorter.

Yes, the bucket list accomplished
the daily online posts
that express and convince
connecting still to the outside.
But why is this?
And why you?
A mystery as all of it
unfolds relentlessly.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2016

 

9/10/16

All the Days Are Numbered

Jenny and Chris Cooper

This is what dying looks like
on the good days
like living but sharper
like living but clearer
like living but deeper
the choices and chances more limited now

What is important cuts through the clutter
to take a pain-free breath
to savor a juicy peach
to hear your child’s laugh
to look in the eyes of, talk with,
hold the hand of your beloved

This is what the end looks like up close
at the edge of the unknown
all the love you have gathered to you
all the love you sent back out
This…noticing. This profound…awareness
of the part the path you walk alone…
and never alone, entirely still.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2016

Please share this post if it might help anyone.

Do Not Let Your Heart Close

10/17/16

After New Yorker Podcast

Do not let your heart close
no matter
no matter
I know what is inside and out
the dark desperation you may

never speak of…
yet there it is
no matter
no matter

The shadow that follows
the shadow released into the world
and no one knows what will happen
no matter
no matter

Do not let your heart close in fear
or protection (if you can)
without at least a sliver open
How else can the light get in
how will your light—
yes, even you…and you…
how will your light
activate a germinating seed
becoming a green shoot…a tender bud
a fully realized blossom?

You may despair for a moment
but do not live there.
Why did you choose
to come here and come now?

You don’t remember,
but I do.
Everywhere around you
is something beautiful
some kindness. Be generous.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2016

Written a few weeks ago in the midst of that craziness. With some Leonard Cohen influence and so it seemed appropriate for today, to honor his passing.

November 11, 2016, Backyard Sky and Trees, (c) MDMikus

November 8, 2016, Backyard Sky and Trees, Copyright MDMikus

Poem: Election Day This Tuesday

11/6/16

Election Day This Tuesday

two days before

The limits have been tested
and found to be limitless
of what would be believed
despite the factual evidence
when despair and desperation sets in
and along comes a slippery cynical con man.
What is belief but trusting
without seeing the water to wine
drinking the Kool-Aid when told it is time.
Hypnosis on a mass scale
without the ability to read or reason
the ground becomes sky
and the sky is falling.
And here we are with our roles to play
in the greater drama unfolding
without assurances or certainty of safety
will we —as a country—
be on the wrong side of history?
What has been set in motion is no less
than revealing the deepest shadows
lancing the boil that was always there
but ignored. Loosening the noose
that might have eventually strangled
healing the chasm between “us” and “them”
and re-building…stronger together.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2016

Reading this poem now, it seems prescient. But at the time, it looked like Hillary Clinton was going to be the next president of the United States. I was trying to express some of the craziness and turmoil that seemed to be all around.

For those of us who had hoped for an inclusive, historic, and continuing progressive path for our country, there is a time for grieving and that will be ongoing for a while. There is also a time to do what we can. “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” (Arthur Ashe) This is that time. I am a poet. I am a healer. This recent poem is what I can offer right now as support. Perhaps it speaks to you or for you. Perhaps it offers some clarity or calmness or perspective. The work is never over. Who are you in relation to all this? Who are you becoming by your choices? As opera singer (teacher and humanitarian), Joyce Didonato, is asking: “In the midst of chaos, how do you find peace?” Please share.

November Walk, MDMikus Copyright 2016

November Walk, MDMikus Copyright 2016

After Orlando

Do you know the Native American story about the grandfather telling about the two wolves we have inside us? This poem is partly from that story and from the Orlando shooting and all the others that continue unrelenting. An effort to work things through.

6/13/16

After Orlando
more becoming known

We are on permanent vigil as events
swirl and darken and repeat unrelenting
as petitions are again signed hopefully
as if that is the answer to everything

Not to knock petitions, I’ve signed my share
but once signed to relax as if
the signing was the action, the change?

All around is dark and light
Inside are the two kinds of wolves
Graphs can tell us some facts interpreted

but who creates the world we breathe in
Is this one of an infinite number
from all the choices that have been made?

Or is this the result of some agreement or
an earth school we knowingly signed onto
to learn something or unlearn something

to release or take on
becoming who we are…more loving?
And the two wolves we all have inside

one generous and loving, one angry and hate-filled
which one wins the fight was asked?
The one you feed.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2016

Gratitude as an Antidote to Grief

Peony Open to Sun, by MDMikus Copyright 2016

Peony Open to Sun by MDMikus Copyright 2016

For 24 years I’ve taken voice lessons. Singing is part of it, of course, with a focus on recovery of my true full voice. But sometimes it’s about life lessons, releasing what’s in the way of the voice expressing. It’s about self-acceptance and stilling the harsh inner critic. It’s about letting go of control and setting out a premise, an intention to sing full out, and see what happens. It has also become about performance practice: my ability to deliver my poems and songs in the most powerful and effective way possible. To learn not to take up all the emotional space for some dramatic effect, but to be fully present and allow the listener to have their own emotional response, to feel what they need to feel.

My gifted voice teacher, and long-time friend, is Kip Snyder. He was the former music and artistic director of the Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus during the peak of the AIDS epidemic. He knows about grieving. From the beginning of my writing poetry (and songs) 20 years ago, I brought them to my lessons and Kip treated it like this was totally normal. His deep listening and easy acceptance was crucial to encouraging the baby steps that lead to my own acceptance of being a poet. We’ve worked together through multiple sclerosis, multiple cancers, heart disease, hernia repairs, kidney stones and grief for many reasons, as well as laughter and joy, the fullness of life.

Months ago, to get ready to record poems from my latest book, Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine, I began reading aloud 3 to 6 poems per lesson, starting at the beginning of the book and continuing chronologically. We also might vocalize and work on songs, but doing the reading was consistent. Invariably these poems would “happen to fit” what was going on in life at that moment. And we would look at each other with “that look” and shrug at the mysteries of the Universe.

In a lesson a month ago I read the poem, “Gratitude as an Antidote to Grief,” and I could see in Kip’s eyes and face that he resonated with in it a big way. This was powerfully affirming for me: to deeply move someone with my writing and my reading. This is what he said (from the 5/11/16 recorded lesson):

“I think that is one of the most valuable ones that’s in the book. It really is. I see why people would contact you and say, it’s what I needed, right on the money. For people dealing with loss… this is the light at the end of the tunnel.”

This poem is from the part of the book around the time of my mother’s death. She was the third and last of our parents to pass away in a very short time. I wrote this poem as comfort for my youngest sister…and myself. It turned out to be the day before Mom died. It seems particularly apropos right now with the shooting this week in Orlando. May it be a comfort to someone.

7/13/12 PM

Gratitude as an Antidote to Grief

For Dorothy

Grief as a tidal wave
after the tsunami
washing lives out to sea.

Roots ripped out
of living trees,
no end to sorrow.

But to be grateful
for what is and was,
even as future is lost

to notice and bless
peace and stillness
in place of struggle.

To hope for music
and music comes,
to imagine comfort

of holding a hand,
singing a childhood song,
praying a familiar prayer,

to desire someone to act as if
I were there,
and it is done.

Blessings on everyone.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2012

From Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine:
Poems of Grace, Hope, and Healing

THROWN AGAIN into the FRAZZLE MACHINE: Poems of Grace, Hope, and Healing

THROWN AGAIN into the FRAZZLE MACHINE: Poems of Grace, Hope, and Healing