Category Archives: relationships

Unexpected Obituary

Spring Garden, Copyright 2007 MDMikus

Spring Garden, Copyright 2007 MDMikus

My husband and I belong to Folkstage on WFMT radio in Chicago. With other donor/ folk music enthusiasts we see up to 26 folk concerts a year, in an intimate setting. This group has become our main social connection. Recently a long-time Folkstage member passed away unexpectedly. For several days afterward I woke with this image in my head—a poem insisting on being written. I resisted. I did not really want to write more about loss, but in the end I trusted that impulse. This poem is about how those in our lives affect us in very real ways, even if we are unaware of it until they are gone. “This is the moment we have…”

6/7/15

Unexpected Obituary

Folkstage Family

Peter Clark
seems to be still standing
steadfast at the back
doing anything that was asked.

Or sitting in the front row
listening and taking photos,
next to him, Nancy, his wife,
partners in all their wide life.

I should tell you one small thing
that is, to me, revealing.
He was selling CDs as usual,
I was buying CDs to be signed.

I had not known him long,
we were not particular friends,
but he saw me struggling to open them
and immediately offered a solution—

a CD opener—he had more than one
from a Folk Alliance he’d just come from.
Not just to use once, but to keep,
a useful gift easily given.

We did not become close friends,
just many brief talks over the years
when I bought CDs or had a new book out
and he might tell me of his books, his travels,

not bragging, but justly proud of a job well done
that might be of use to someone.
And maybe now I’ve told you this
I can lay his ghost to rest.

I did not know so many things, like
how we shared the same birthday;
I learned more afterward on his Facebook page
than ever he said to me.

Now the stories are coming out
of generosity and thoughtful kindness,
a full life well-lived, a good man,
he will be missed.

And maybe now I’ve told you this
I can lay his ghost to rest.

Peter Clark at 73
as old as he will ever be
10 years ahead of me
as day by day inevitably
we all face our eternity.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2015

Love poem from “Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine”

Not too late for Valentine’s. It’s really the whole weekend, right?

One of the narrative threads running through my new book, Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine: Poems of Grace, Hope, and Healing, is love. (The book is dedicated to my husband.) Here is a love poem written before major surgery:

11/21/13

Safe and Spooned

I am safe
lying here spooned
with my sleeping husband

who is warm
and smells slightly of cloves.
We are softly breathing

and music is playing.
Lying here under a thick duvet
it is a warm cocoon.

I am safe
pain-free
breathing easily

heart beats regularly.
When I rise
I slip back into the room

and walk effortlessly
out the door
down the hall into

my own silence.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2013

New! Print edition of Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine is now available at Amazon.com!

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Why Travel

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Door County, Wis. Copyright 2014 MDMikus

Stephen and I recently took a short break in Door County, Wisconsin, a drive north of us. We have gone there many times over the years. Each time is different. This time I wanted to tell friends there about poems I wrote last year, inspired by them, that made it into my new book, Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine: Poems of Grace, Hope, and Healing (coming soon). It was wonderful to be connected through the writing. Of course I also wrote more this year. Here is one.

8/25/14

Why Travel

To open to expand
to try out once
to meet to see

to listen to begin
to taste to experience
away from all past

to shake out the webs from
to consider saying yes
to dip a toe in

to give what has been denied
to break loose
to break off inevitable barnacles

to change perception
to lighten the usual load
to walk in other shoes

to breathe again
to hear music when
to take a chance

and choose.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2014

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Sunset, Door County, WIs. Copyright 2014 MDMikus

Invite Fear to Tea

Sally Barris, in her lovely concert at WFMT in Chicago last Saturday night, sang a song that reminded me of this poem of mine. I wrote it at a rapidly changing, chaotic time in my life when fear felt particularly dominant. I was considering how to neutralize fear’s hold over me. (The second poem was the very next one I wrote, a vivid description you might recognize.)

How much power do you give up to fear, repressing, denying or pushing it under? What if we could…

5/20/05

Invite Fear to Tea

What would it look like, feel like,
to invite fear to tea,
warily circle, then sit, sipping?
No judgment, no struggle,

only acknowledgment and being with,
not to understand or accommodate
or even talk with,
not to lessen or wrestle with.

Just to sit, sipping tea,
graciously, neutrally,
looking eye into eye,
quite normally.

Invite fear to tea,
sit down naturally,
calmly, not as with an enemy,
engage in social niceties:

Sugar? One lump or two? Milk or lemon?
Glance away thoughtful,
not stare or press for conversation,
not in curiosity, not in capitulation.

If ever I could…

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2005
On my CD, “Full Blooming”

And the next poem:
5/21/05

The Edge

Too much has changed
to find the old balance.
As I try to move back,
spikes shred my tires.

The edge of the cliff
is not where I left it.
Can you wonder why
I keep falling off?

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2005

One of the most powerful ways I currently deal with fear was suggested in a Facebook post I read a few months ago. It is an affirmation: “I am free from…” fill in the blank with whatever is troubling you. So in this case I say (aloud or to myself): “I am free from fear” or “I am free of fear.” Immediately I feel much lighter. A way of stating a fervent intention. It may seem too easy, but it is easy enough to do the experiment. Let me know how it goes.