Category Archives: support

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.

Lovely Winter Surprise

I just had the loveliest surprise and I wanted to share it with you. I happened to be on iBooks tonight and found a 5 star review of my book, Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine. Just warmed me up, for sure!

Here it is:
“This beautiful book of poems touches all of my emotions. It leaves me weeping, laughing, soaring with possibilities, and speaks to me intimately. Her poetry is a beautiful gift.” Fletch62.

I am most grateful!!!

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

Loss of Robin Williams

Gift Gerbera Daisy by Margaret Dubay Mikus Copyright 2014

First blog post in a while (more is on Facebook). Wow the summer is going by fast!

I am very moved by the loss of Robin Williams, remembering all the varied, pitch-perfect roles over the years and the tears-running-down-the-face laughing at his comic genius. But there is a cost to fame. Much is being said about mental illness and addiction, but what pushes someone over the edge? I know very dark places and I am grateful I made it through. Thank you to all who helped me at the perfect times, so I could weather life-storms.

This poem from my upcoming book, Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine: Poems of Grace, Hope and Healing, came to mind to share today. Life in the public eye is especially hard for those who are sensitive souls. Although written with Robert Pattinson in the title I was thinking about all performers in the relentless public eye.

10/20/10

For Robert Pattinson
And the others

To be the perfect mirror
so that others see
what they most desire

is a special kind of hell.
To not be real,
anything your own,

celebrated but
not seen.
Invisible in your own skin,

when you step out
the image you created
precedes and masks you.

Who takes the trouble
to get to know you
in all quirky human complexity?

The more you say
“I am not a fictional character,”
the less you are believed,

an immense price to pay
for unexpected popularity,
ultimately unsought,

no matter the salary.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2010

Flowers Catch April Sun by Margaret Dubay Mikus Copyright 2014

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?

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.

Mirroring Back to You

In response to my long-overdue Full Blooming News e-newsletter this week, I heard back from some people. Lovely connection!

My friend Charlotte from Georgia, commented that I even wrote my response to her poetically. We were talking about getting frustrated and discouraged sometimes, feeling like giving up. And I told her a realization that had been helpful to me lately, to get out of the impossible traps we set for ourselves. (What does it mean to be successful, anyway?) She took a paragraph of mine, added line breaks and color, and the result is below, which I like it a lot. Thank you!

Charlotte is a multi-talented woman who is a pianist, composer, gardener, photographer, memoirist and makes lovely videos using all these elements. Her latest is here. She inspires me!

What have your friends mirrored back to you lately?

4/2/14

This is what I have come to understand:
my job, should I choose to accept it,
is to deliver the poems.

To get them out in the world
to as many as can be helped.
It is about redefining success
as I had been longing for.

Success is doing my job:
delivering the poems—
to an individual,
to a group,
as best I can.
And that is all.

To do that means
being as healthy
and balanced
and grounded as I can—
every day.

It means listening inside
and paying attention
before I “fall off the cliff.”

If you did not get your copy of the April Full Blooming News, with all kinds of new stuff from the past 6 months, check your spam folder or sign up here. (For those with Gmail, check other folders like “promotion” or “updates” that it might be filed in.) I do not share email addresses with anyone for any reason. Happy Spring!

Belated Happy Easter!

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