(St. Tim’s Coffeehouse)

It is understandable
these days and nights
to feel frustration
turn to anger, then rage
Feel grief, desperation, despair
Feel lost, helpless, depressed
anxious, hopeless, sleepless…
Which doesn’t help you.

Allow 10 minutes to wallow
a bit less or more
then do your primary job
of balancing…even on one toe.
Send out what you want to receive
what you want to give.
Breathe and breathe
feel your heart’s steady beat
miraculous.
Watch the dawn
rose tint the east horizon.
Profusion of spring daffodils bloom
and those little purple-blue, white-centered
flowers we never planted,
(I never remember their name)
but reliably they blanket the beds
bleeding into the spring grass
followed by the grape hyacinths.

We still don’t know the end of
even one story in this complexity.
We don’t know where this will lead.
We do know all this will pass
and what will we be left?
I adamantly refuse to turn into
someone I don’t like or recognize.
Don’t be pulled down
the dark path
fall off the crumbling cliff.
Or if you do, stop
brush off, choose again.
This I ask you
in the name of…

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2026

From my upcoming collection
Rippling Out From Folkstage