Category Archives: family

Remembering the First Day of Spring

Dorothy

It has come to my attention
that I have forgotten
the day of the year my sister died
even though it was the first day of spring
easy enough to remember.
And thus it passed by this year
without commemoration.
Upon reflection then
it seemed…perhaps…
necessary for survival.
How to get up out of
the dark, deep, dank well
of grief and choose
to live
without her.

Now, aware again
tears flowing again
but perhaps
more resilient now
than I was then
I can allow myself
to remember.

One thing I have to say
it may not have happened that way
an interpretive dance
from this precise distance
on this particular summer day.

I know I spoke of her sometimes
I know I cried sometimes.

I know I was recovering from
a total knee replacement
a big deal.

I know the country
has gone crazy and
the world is in disarray

the wars and starvation
the fires, droughts, storms and floods and
other diminutions of free-flowing energy.

When I asked her, nearing the end
what she was most afraid of, she said
that she would be forgotten

not knowing how deeply
and longingly and widely
she would be missed.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2025
 
From my poetic journal, 7/12/25

Really Bad News, She Said

My sister Dorothy has been gone several years now. Jan. 7 was her birthday, shared with our youngest brother (exactly a year apart) and our Grandma S. (He died very young, more than a decade ago.) Here is a poem I wrote after a phone call, one of many poems about her.

1/12/19

Really Bad News, She Said

Dorothy calls

Overload
from my latest
cancer diagnosis
and yours—and
you hold the record—
as we travel in parallel
down this potholed clinical road

Different details
the outcome equally
uncontrolled as we
guess which advice
to take and when
Trying to reason and
follow intuition

Some scars visible
some internal
as each day we struggle
What is this for?
Why am I still here?
As damage accumulates
and the rarer good days

even more a gift
One more conversation
speaking the same language
treasuring the time we have
Even occasional laughter
however dark or dry

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2019

From my poetic journal

Mom’s High School Boyfriend

Mom and Me in 2009 Copyright MDMikus

Mom’s High School Boyfriend

If war had not come
and he had lived on and
they had stayed together
I would not have been born.

The unique combination of genes
the lattice upon which I grew to be
the one choosing this path for myself
all that would not…exist

here and now anyway
whatever you believe about
alternate universes where
the other forks in the road were taken.

My potential existence hung uncontrolled
on so much unbeknownst to me—
the baby yet to come—then
if war and chaos and despair

had not shaken the world
like a snow globe but violent
and at the conclusion settled back into
a sailor and a nurse meeting

through mutual friends, marrying
in their common parish church
raising seven children
me being the second.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
(c) 2015

Published in Journal of Modern Poetry, vol. 20, (2017) The Poetry Writer’s Guide to the Galaxy

Read to the End–newly rediscovered poem

Forty-seven years ago May 25 fell on a Saturday (Memorial weekend) and Stephen and I got married at Queen of Peace Church. It was 3 weeks after my graduation from the University of Michigan and 1 week after his first year law school final exams. We were both 22 years old. We were so glad to be together we held onto each other and grinned through most of the ceremony. Even after this pandemic year, that is still true.

Here is a recently rediscovered poem from 21 years ago. When I read it to Stephen he didn’t remember the incident, but really liked the poem, so here it is.

6/29/00

Read to the End

Where can you be?
they are calling
desperate in their way
to find you

in the middle of negotiation
you walked away
stepped out…to where?
Is that when you called

me and left a message
“Talk to you at home”
two hours ago and
you are not home.

Where can you be
run off, run over
leaped off a bridge
into swift green water?

Wandering lost
down familiar, but faint
Chicago city streets?
Sudden flash of “must get out”

sudden loss of stamina
to keep on such a hard
“responsible” course
you set for yourself

thinking your sacrifice
was for us?
Where could you be—
come home to me—and talk

it through, like we always do.
Take this line I throw out to you
hold fast as I pull
you back to the safety of my arms.

**
And now the rest of the story:
You left for a meeting,
an estimate on hail damage,
and came home smiling after.

No danger, no need for worry
who knew? All that energy
wasted except to realize
once again how I love you.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2000

Recently rediscovered from my poetic journal

Cutting our wedding cake, 1974

Margaret and Stephen, Door County, WI

#poem #anniversary #love #poetry #lovepoetry

Prompted by Blake’s Question

4/5/20

Prompted by Blake’s Question

in this time of mandatory stay at home

For Stephen

We do what we can
to laugh, to love
to live another day.

And when we learn better
hopefully we do better.
How have you and I stayed

together 48+ years—still friends?
Once the question is out there
I’ve been thinking back

to the roller coaster
our constant notes written and left
to find, funny, sometimes thoughtful

sometimes informative, touching base.
The times we might have split
but worked through it

the relentless medical challenges
job stresses, raising two kids
personal growth, changing, not always

in perfect parallel aligned
“and if I fall behind, wait for me.”
But here we are together

almost half a century after that first January
when we sat side by side in the front row
the first day of a college literature class

had our first conversation of countless many.
Here we are still interested
still laughing, watching out for each other

still loving.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2020

From my poetic journal, a reminder that this week (Jan 17, 1972) is celebrating 49 years together. The quote is a reference to a Bruce Springsteen song.

Unexpected Wave, CA Beach, by M D Mikus, Copyright 2013

After the Wave, taken by Stephen Mikus 2013