This poem was inspired by a conversation in a parking lot with my friend, Geary Davis, who said one sentence that really soaked into me. I am grateful still.

Poem #12, “Put Down the Sword of Self-Wounding,” from my book, Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine: Poems of Grace, Hope, and Healing, is about a healing a particular relationship, the one with myself. Listen: https://youtu.be/wlekuqQpQ9k

5/28/09

Put Down the Sword of Self-Wounding

After talking to Geary about a ritual to ease pain

Put down the sword
of self-destruction
and self-immolation,

of self-defeat, self-demolition,
and self-defacing. Stop
stabbing myself in the vulnerable gut

in remorse, guilt, grief and regret
at what I could not
control or plan or shape.

Melt that sword
into the ploughshare
that carves the furrows

into which I place
the seeds I have been holding back.
Let forgiveness

flood the field,
let love shine upon them,
let the earth be fertile and loam-rich

and bountiful harvest my just reward.
After all the lifetimes
of all the dark and light alike

let my new life
result from a conscious new choice:
to put down the sword.

No more self-blame
self-criticism or self-judging,
no more crimson shame,

no more self-harsh words,
no more self-unkindness,
no more self-disrespect,

or screaming at myself
at perceived imperfections
or unbearable failings.

Only forgiveness
to the bone of things
to the bottom and top of memory,

forgiveness heaped
on forgiveness, eaten
at a great feast of forgiveness.

And when sated,
love as dessert and
as the main course ever after.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2009

Does this feel at all familiar to you?

Listen to more video poems from “Frazzle”