Category Archives: poetry

Happy Birthday Mom!!


Today is my Mother’s 85th birthday. She was 25 when she had me, her oldest daughter (second of seven children). Now her life is wrapping up. After a series of many small strokes or “episodes,” she has significant cognitive loss according to testing. (Not Alzheimer’s.) She was a registered nurse for many years (maybe 50?). But now she cannot recall many words that used to be easy for her and she more often loses her train of thought, which frustrates her.

Yet every Monday we have these amazing conversations, talking of our week, our lives, our memories. I try to be calming and newsy: what’s going on with the kids, my husband, or my writing. We try not to talk too much about the medical. I may describe a squirrel swishing his tail on the tree in front of me. And we both remember that my Dad loved to watch the antics of squirrels in our backyard. I am grateful she knows who I am and remembers what is going on with our family. We both consciously treasure these conversations, this time we still have. This is the most recent poem for her.

9/12/11  Monday

An Ordinary Conversation

My mother wanted to remember
and I want to remember

this particular conversation
which started out about disarray

of a problematic week and
took a journey to calm consideration

of life as it plays out.
And if her voice is rough, throat dry

and if memory slips in and out
well, so what? Here we are still

talking of past and mostly present
telling stories that mean something

lending support, encouragement
eye to eye, heart to heart.

What could be better than that?

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2011

Inspiration

It has been very hot here, thus the refreshing fountain, which also applies to today’s topic.

I read two poems last Friday at the open mic at RHINO Reads at Brothers K coffeehouse in Evanston, IL. About ten of us read (roughly 4 minutes each), followed by the two featured poets.

I am intrigued by how creativity inspires or “primes the pump” for further creative endeavors. Like writing or art or dance or architecture, etc.… opening a door to a new poem or photograph for me.

The origin of first poem is self-explanatory. Ralph Hamilton is a great guy who MCs the monthly readings. A bit of a risk reading a poem for someone who was there. But I gave him a heads up when I sent him an earlier version of the poem last week. Bravely, (or kindly) he did not discourage me from reading it.

The second poem is a reflection on the healing power of art inspired by Woman Made Gallery in Chicago. Beate Minkovski is the co-founder and executive director. I have been a member there for years and I never leave without feeling energized.

What inspires you?

6/9/11

In Response to Ralph Hamilton

(inspired by a Rhino blog entry on what he looks for in poetry)

Let me gently read aloud
your razor words back to you
so you will hear and see and feel what I do
what is true and not true.

So you can step outside
the mind creating
and be immersed in creation,
be swept away swimming.

You are unworthy you say
self-absorbed, lonely, even lazy.
Yet what you dared to write
sings louder to me than words.

Be kind, outside the familiar
voice of harsh critical judging,
reflecting on how far from
the intent is the attempt.

Be generous, as if you were someone else,
believe your words bravely written
have something essential to say to someone,
open long-closed channels, move immovable mountains,

expose exquisite unique facets.
Poetry is big enough you say
for differences to grate or soothe or rouse.
There is no success or failing,

there is no measuring up to
what might have been, if only…
There is only this:
life, full, repressed, expressed.

And a container, hopeful bowl of cherries,
even pitted, may still contain pits.
Risk a bruised or broken tooth
for the tart sweetness and abundant juice.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2011

(These two evocative photos were taken at Eyes Wide Open, Beyond Fear–Towards Hope: An Exhibition on the Human Cost of the Iraq War in Grant Park, Chicago, IL, May, 2007

2/27/07

Thinking of Beate

Sometimes art heals
by soothing, sometimes
by lancing the boil, or
by opening the eyes
to fresh possibilities.

Sometimes it closes a door
to a room filled with stale air,
sometimes screams
from a dark bottomless pit,
sometimes presents
wonder on a silver platter.

Sometimes art compels to look,
sometimes can barely look;
the healing subtle
or heart pounding,

one fully present moment
resounding over the ages.
All I am telling you is this:
there is no doubt art heals.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2007

Review of As Easy as Breathing (and Full Blooming CD)

By Pramod Uday
Spiritual being, teacher and speaker from India
https://pramod.podomatic.com


Let me begin by telling you that I really love the title. On many occasions, when I was upset or worried, just looking at this book sitting neatly on my reading table brought me just enough relief to “point me downstream”. I feel Margaret heals more through this work than any other anthology.

Writing in her open, sensitive and yet detached vein as always, the poet impresses on the reader the need to get unstuck and flow with life. What one cannot but marvel at is how her poems create both the impression of having flowed smoothly through a wide conduit of inspiration and yet seem to have been subjected to the meticulous chisel of a finicky craftsmen. One can sense this palpable tension of sorts quite clearly, for example, in the piece entitled To Dance is To Be, where you find a very dynamic and lively snapshot of gracious dance movements. Let me be clear here – this conflict only adds to the merit of the poems as it provides another glimpse into Margaret’s loving care for words.

The poems address a wide variety of topics ranging from healing to allowing, filial love to finding your purpose and much more.


I highly recommend this book. However, if you want to completely relish the sweetness of Margaret’s poetry, I really think you should listen to them in her own voice as found on the CD Full Blooming, which is a reading of selected poems from the book. The enchanting quality of Margaret’s voice is so full of that rare elusive quality, what one might dub muliebrity. Margaret’s poetry itself is autobiographical. But when you listen to them in her own voice, the full sincerity and warmth of her words easily seep into the cockles of your heart.  Suffice it to say that listening to this CD is like a deep relaxing session of meditation. You will find that your fatigue and stress has been removed and that your soul has been nourished and replenished from within.

Thank you, Pramod, for your generosity and thoughtful reviews. I am most grateful!
Check out  As Easy as Breathing and Full Blooming CD to see for yourself.

IWWG at Brown, part 3

These are my final poems and a few pictures from the IWWG conference at Brown University in summer, 2010. (Some poems written at home just after.) The Remember the Magic conference has been going on more than thirty some years, a long time, mostly at Skidmore College. Last summer it was at Brown, this summer it will be a Yale, but smaller in scope. This is an organization in transition and like all transitions, personal or organizational, the outcome is not certain. The possibilities numerous and spacious. I am grateful for the weeks I had to go out on my own, with other women writers, and discover and be myself. The joy of creation and then coming home. What remains of all the glorious insight when I am back in the context of daily life?

8/4/10

To write on unlined paper
to color outside the lines

willing to be seen as different
not go along to fit in.

To be joyful
to carry a glass at least half-full.

To embrace change
as pure possibility, wait and see.

To practice
what I almost preach

to walk the talk
without squawking.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2010

8/5/10

For Kitt

You don’t know
what they say about you
but I do

“That Kitt Alexander,
I just love her!”
I’m not making this up

from fervent imagination.
It really happened.
Would I lie to you?

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2010

8/5/10

Lessons in Self-Care

Every day, wake up
balance consciously as best I can
stay with it
brush teeth twice, morning and night,
shower, lotion, and deodorant.
Clothes in colors that vibrate and resonate.

Water often. Food  as fuel. Walk. Listen. Smile.
There is more I’m sure,
just promise to pay attention
as best I can, as best I can.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2010

8/8/10

Post-Conference

Opportunities will arise
to gently exercise
underused muscles like
the muscle to stick up for yourself
to be assertive on your own behalf,
or the muscle to listen to inner guidance
without struggle or shyness,
or the muscle to hear the voice
that says time to rest.

Each an opportunity to practice
what you know is true.
This way you are is not the True-you,

just the collection of life choices
and circumstances up to now,
conscious or unaware,
added to what you came in with
and what you were given to work on.
And now is the chance to choose again,

begin to re-write the old story.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2010

8/8/10

Thinking of You

Time and again
I have faced the inevitable end

and thus far
it has always receded

to the indefinite future
where you still are.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2010

8/8/10

Lie Down

Lie down in the clouds above you

separate for a moment from the life you lead

float for a bit weightless

just for a moment

then drift back

light

breathe

and re-animate

wiggle bare toes, feel grass tickle

feet grounded but light on the face of earth

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2010

8/9/10

Monday Walk After Singing

Empty
Fill
Be filled

Empty
Walk to the lake
muscle kinks work out

mind stills with steps taken
See the new ivy shoots
on crumbling brick wall

Drink water
go on after intersection
Check in. Go on

Surprising how far goes
one foot in front of the other
Drink water

Turn back at the end
walking uphill now
comfortable stride

Left, right
walk with both feet
heel, toe, shoes re-tied

just right
Cut across church grass
not exactly explicitly forbidden

Drive off smiling
at workmen spreading out dirt
under very old trees

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2010 

8/9/10

Someone Said

Someone said something
a small puzzle
a sliver under the skin

irritatingly hard to remove.
Why of all the kind words spoken
should these thoughtless ones remain?

Because of implication
because I want to please everyone
(including myself)

even though that is not possible—
there is no pleasing some people.
Let it go. Don’t you know.

Let it go, my sweet potato.
Talk and untangle.
Walk and calm.

Sweat and sleep and write
and bless all the teachers
who have come.

Bless and move on along.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2010 

8/9/10

Home

Back home with
magic in my bones

how to sustain
in my usual domain

where it appears
nothing has changed

the demands, the constraints
the ties that bind.

How to be as I was:
most gloriously my own?

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2010