Purple Coneflowers

I Come Back

to your waiting arms
and put my ear
to your heart
and breathe
and feel safe.

From that supported space
I can explore
and risk
and grow,
knowing I can always go
back to your waiting arms.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
Copyright © 1996

we weave
to catch
the morning sun,

glistening with
drops of dew.
Webs of glowing
threads, webs

to hold in strongest wind
webs to catch,
webs to live in,
to deceive or

to grieve
what is lost. Webs
to patch and finally,
webs to leave.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
Copyright © 1997

The wear and tear
from always
being in gear

is slow, steady,
inevitable.

Once in a while
or even regularly,
just slip out

and idle.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
Copyright © 1996

planted in neat even rows
in newly tilled spring soil,

to poke through green and
come to full height by fall,
to be harvested then all at once.

Some are winter wheat,
plant late, harvest late.
Some grow wild in unlikely places

in forests or fields, and would wither
in the glare of hot summer sun.
Some grow in the desert, some in marsh,

each plant has its own beauty and utility,
its own cycle of sowing and blooming.
As do we, could we see it.

I don’t feel
that I have cancer:
not just physically,
that surgery
successfully removed
abnormal cells…

but mentally; I am not
“a person with cancer.”
Cancer is something that
is happening to me.

If a pigeon poops on your head
you don’t become
“a person with bird poop.”
It’s just something that happened to you.

You clean up,
tell your tale
and move on.