Category Archives: poetry

Attitude of Gratitude

As part of healing from a traumatic post-surgical experience in 2010, I decided to consciously focus on what I was grateful for. Try it. Start a list and keep going until you are all out of ideas. Shifts the energy big time. Let me know how it goes.

Here is the poem from Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine: Poems of Grace, Hope, and Healing.

2/24/10

Beginning a Very Long List

I am grateful for fading of images
burned on the pliant leather of my mind.

I am grateful for forgetfulness and forgiveness—
for me included.

Some things I don’t want to remember
and write about, teach and ponder.
I am the ever-changing center of it all.

I am grateful for the people who came to help me heal:
those in my circle, those who did one small essential thing.

I am grateful for insides that stay in
and strong muscles, intact skin.

I am grateful to be pain-free, to wear regular clothes,
to eat and digest food, to laugh and blow bubbles.

I am grateful for sleep, for reading, to be able to write.
For clear mind, to climb stairs,

to be able to get out of bed by myself.
I am grateful to drive, to go off alone…and safe.

I am grateful for massage and colored light,
acupuncture, guided imagery, talking, and healing energy.

I am grateful for breaths that soak deep into my body,
for heart pumping in steady rhythm, blood flowing freely in vessels.

I am grateful for clean clothes and fresh sheets,
a cozy comfortable nest of a bed,

warm showers and coconut bubbles sluicing over clean skin.
I am grateful for generous husband, kind children, concerned family.

I am grateful for a future stretching out with possibility.
I am grateful for taste and smell, hearing, touch and sight.

I am grateful for returning clarity and balance, peace and harmony.
I am grateful for timely Olympics, Elizabeth Peters, and Enya.

I am grateful for my fun little blue Mini Cooper in need of cleaning.
For snowy days soon ending in spring, for passing seasons,

crisp air, watercolor clouds, intermittent sun.
I am grateful for warmth and water, softness and firmness,

promise of returning strength, for blue nails like an ocean in the desert,
for girls’ day out, replenishing, restoring.

I am grateful for what is coming, for juicy, rich days ahead
and for what is past, healed and done.

No, I do not need to remember all the dark abyss details
to be grateful I made it again to light.

Did I forget the Loving Others, those guiding ever-present spirits?
I didn’t mean to.

The list is long and continuing: a comfort bear brought to the hospital,
a timely shoulder rub and discussion of the history of Jell-O,

story-telling, a sweet kiss, encouraging words,
so much gratitude every cell is filled with it.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2010

Release of “Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine”

I just early-released my new book, Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine: Poems of Grace, Hope and Healing. I realized that many people – with a Kindle or the free Kindle app, for example – would not be able to access it at all until November. So at midnight, I let my heartfelt book fly out into the wide world! Thank you to those who did pre-order. I am most grateful! You should get access to the book sooner.

May these poems be a lifeboat, offering comfort, healing, inspiration, and hope. Although telling a personal story, aspects might express something you want to say or help someone you care about. I should tell you it has a happy ending as I came through what seemed like a long black tunnel, “the only way out, is through….”

Includes 11 interior color photos plus the cover.

Another poem from the book:

6/12/10

Shadow Healing
James Keelaghan at Folkstage

What part of me
is overflowing

What part is a
river dammed up

What part of me
longs for release

What part is tears
flowing unbidden

What part is unkind
or uncertain

I’m only saying
trying to decode a language
spoken in symptoms

trying to heal what
has arisen.

What part of me
is unbending

What part needs
immediate release

What is becalmed
stilled, expressionless

What is inflamed or angry
deserving to be heard

What is in shadow
unforgiven, denied

What part is unloved
buried deep, pushed aside

What is impatient, impotent
small, voiceless

worthy of healing
worthy of being part

of the perfect again-
welcome whole.

What part of me is
weakness unacknowledged

What part is unwilling to rest
and restlessness

What part of me is
tears un-shed and
fears hidden and
words bitten back

What have I walled off
what am I pregnant with

What desperate pleas
have gone unanswered

What part of me is
warring against another

What is revealed
comes up for air

what comes up
light shines upon it

what has light
has hope and promise

anything is possible
anything is possible to heal.

Don’t give up
anything is possible.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2010

A Moment of Grace (meeting Eric Whitacre)

In an earlier post I wrote about meeting composer and conductor, Eric Whitacre. This is about inner guidance that came to me that night.

As I sat in Alice Millar Chapel in Evanston two feet from him, I felt that familiar feeling of smallness, almost wanting to become invisible. I was afraid I would try to speak and fumble with the words, mumbling something inane. I feared not being…well, myself…meeting someone I greatly admired, a gifted musician, a public figure, a gorgeous guy. Normally I am very articulate and love meeting new people. In fact, that night I had met a number of local members of Virtual Choir (and their partners) for the first time. I even read a few of my VC inspired poems for them. But sometimes, unknowingly…all my insecurities get triggered. Have you ever felt this way?

This was my first solo outing after recovery from major surgery in December. It was a harsh winter to be out in, and I still felt vulnerable. I am grateful Elisabeth Smith, a Virtual Choir team member, urged me to not pass up this opportunity.

JC7_3246

I have to say the whole evening was amazing in every regard, restoring my confidence. Several new poems were inspired by that night. Here is one, from my new book, Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine: Poems of Grace, Hope, and Healing. (Thank you, Jonathan Cohen for generously sharing your great photos.) By the way, Eric is genuinely lovely and warm, insightful and funny, both in front a group and with each person who wanted to speak to him, a rare quality indeed.

2/8/14

Amidst the Buzz
Eric Whitacre at Alice Millar Chapel

“Do not make yourself small”
the silent voice said as I sat at the end of the pew

in the chapel where I’d never been…
and very close to you.

I had become smaller, to not be noticed perhaps,
familiar feeling I could not trust?

As an experiment I let go of
feeling intimidated.

I uncrossed my arms and breathed
air into my body as if blowing up an inflatable doll.

Could I become myself,
risk being at full strength,

no excuses to fall back on if I failed
in my clearly unstated mission?

Breathe, expand, feel energy flowing,
slowly aura grows, needing nothing.

Breathe and hold the space,
no questions to ask, only listening.

Receive what is offered, no control over anything,
feeling awareness of everything,

holding the space for what was to be, as if
every word spoken by anyone was wisdom passed down

for everyone, including and especially for me.
Give and receive, barriers and barricades demolished,

vulnerable and powerful,
the truth suddenly so obvious.

From Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine: Poems of Grace, Hope, and Healing now available to pre-order. Thank you for your support!

Why Travel

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.

Portrait of Michael Smith

On a humid, 86 degree day like today in Chicago, it may be hard to remember what a long and cold and snowy winter it was. After having major surgery in December, my first big outing was to a concert by Michael Smith with my husband, Stephen, and friends, Randy and Wendie. It was a big deal even cautiously walking on the icy asphalt of the parking lot.

Our seats were in the second row. I felt like I could see Michael Smith very clearly, inside and out. The show was both deeply moving and hilarious. Because I did not get to talk with him after the show, an insistent poem percolated all the way driving home. I did not write this as a “fan” poem, but rather what I saw as true. Parts of myself perhaps, reflected back from him.

I read this to a few people and they urged me to send it to him. In tracking down an email address, I learned more about his life and accomplishments. I felt a bit intimidated, but sent it anyway. He graciously responded right away: “Thank you, Margaret. I love the poem.” What a gift! Lit me up for days….

What has someone done for you that warmed your heart unexpectedly?

1/19/14

Portrait of Michael Smith
Concert at Lake County Folk Club

He was not old
but old enough
to be comfortable
exposing bits of his humanness,
to be felt and heard and seen
without disguise sometimes, to be
clever and mischievous, gracious and generous.

To be naked enough
to make us cry or laugh,
you have to put in the years,
put in your time as apprentice,
to gather the stories, weave or live them,
to know what is what,
to see the risks and still be willing

enough so some pieces fit,
and brave enough or fearless
to go out and let out some
of the accumulated multitudes of children,
all the practice paying off, the determination
to deliver the songs yet again.
Amen.

From Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine: Poems of Grace, Hope, and Healing, coming in summer 2014. Check FullBlooming.com for more details.

Here is my reading, in my fourth video.

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