Some “thoughts” over the years on the role of poetry in healing.

What do you think?

2/25/03

The Poet

I am my mother’s daughter
and I am the Mother of my Self—
one who made the form
and one who filled it.

And I am the mother of my daughter,
a beauty like no other.
She forgot to wash her socks until midnight and,
smiling her smile, asked if I could put them in the dryer
and I did…easily…again.

Who rules on any given day?
What boundaries between the roles I play
tying me to sanity?

No instructions, no models or even myths.
In all the worlds there ever were
not one has ever been exactly like me…or you.

Or has done what we are about to attempt.
I am tempted to stop, not life, but struggle
to be more, to become what I imagine.

But a poet who is fearless,
who carries on regardless,
whose words are kind and true and honest

is more than essential for survival…
is the compassionate and dispassionate glue
that holds it all together—

or later, after the fall,
uses the bricks from the wall
to make something else altogether.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2003

4/21/06

My Lesson

If I take on your pain
but do not get with it
the tools to work it through—

the tools you have been given
as this is your lesson—
then all I get is grief

and all you get is numb,
temporarily. Brace for
the next onslaught

perhaps even worse.
But if I leave you
your pain, no matter

how deep and bitter,
and sit with you in the dark,
holding your hand in hope,

perhaps speaking in a soft,
reassuring voice, or sitting
in rich silence,

then you may discover
the tools you were given,
buried deep or resting in your hand,

and you may recover
your power to heal
yes…even from this.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2006

2/1/07

Poetry as Healer

And you might say,
how can poetry heal,
it is not a pill I take
into my body?

And I would respond thus
from my heart, the source of poetry:
poetry is word spoken
which is vibration
which is energy
and the body which is matter
is energy very slowed down,

so poetry is energy
into the body which is energy
so energy heals energy.

Of course the frequency of vibration
of the words is important. There are
words that tear down, as you know.

And, as has been graphically shown with
the crystals of Emoto, there are words
which health can be built upon.

These words from the heart
with healing intent,
these are the words that heal,
there is no doubt.

Try them out.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 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 is closing a door
to a room filled with stale air,
sometimes a scream
from a dark bottomless pit,
sometimes presenting
wonder on a silver platter.

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

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

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2007

“The Poet” is from my CD, Full Blooming and my next book, Letting Go and New Beginnings: Poems and Photographs

“Poetry as Healer” and “Thinking of Beate” are from my chapbook, New Year’s Eve Surgery, 2007.