Nature

Crows At The Park

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Like a family at a picnic

They were trying to be together,

But they didn’t get along.

Well, not completely.

Tolerating each other’s presence, they walked about and

Checked out the scenery; stood at the edge of the river

With hands on hips, making polite noises

Watching lily pads float.

Then someone found a good thing

In the garbage. That’s when the trouble started.

They argued and pulled at it until the biggest one

Flew away with it in his beak,

But it was too heavy, and he dropped it…big mistake.

The rest of them swatted it with wings and stabbed at it with

Talons, until a breeze came by and blew it into the river.

They stared after it

Making side-ways glances at each other

Until it was forgotten

Because some new smells drifted across the campground.

They flew in circles

Landing in the branches of pines.

Except one, who still paced the shoreline

In the shadow of the picnic table

Knowing he could get it back if he tried.

© Diane E. Dockum, Just Beyond The Hill, 2008

Available at Xlibris.com  and Amazon.com

On The Inside

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On the inside I am sitting on a large boulder

On top of a mountain singing

To the music of the sunset

As I play my guitar.

The breeze gently lifts

My dark waist length hair,

And silver bracelets are sliding

Up my slender left arm, as I find the chords.

The long skirt I wear is colorful

And comfortable, it brushes against

The bracelet on my ankle, and the setting sun

Glints on the crystal toe ring on my right fourth toe.

On the inside I smell like warm

Summer sunlight and Patchouli flowers.

I am wise and have great spiritual knowledge.

I give good advice.

Of course no one sees this inside.

My outer surface is very different

And I appear to be a woman of a certain age

Having a weight problem.

On the inside I rise above this

Unfortunate circumstance

And listen to the music

Playing in my heart.

©September 29, 2013

Diane E. Dockum

CLAY MOUNTAIN

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Wet clay, and pond scent in the air, and towering

Cat Tails baking at mid-day

Welcome us to the edge of the stream,

Delicious cold stream, with rocks placed just so,

Making stepping stones into the world

Of Clay Mountain.

Gray sands rise in ridges fissured by the rain.

We run and jump over the little valleys.

We marvel over the carcasses

Of dead birds or beavers’ bleached bones

Along the railroad track that runs along

The edge of Clay Mountain.

Remnants of the St. Lawrence Seaway dig,

The big dig, with trucks of gravel gouged

Out of Grandpa and Grandma’s farmland

Carried to make cement

For the Great St. Lawrence Seaway

Connecting the Atlantic Ocean with Chicago.

We never understood back then,

When we used this Clay Mountain for exploring,

For digging up the clay, for imagining a Moonscape

Where we beamed down from Star Ship Enterprise.

We never understood how it got there,

That big Clay Mountain.

We, the Secret Five, who met up in a Maple Tree,

We had our little world of Barbie and of Honey West,

The Beatles and the Man from U.N.C.L.E.

I wonder now, how it looked before

Trucks and heavy equipment came to rearrange the landscape.

Before the Pit and the two Ponds appeared.

by Diane E. Dockum

©June 2013

Never Hug A Thistle

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Never Hug A Thistle

Never hug a thistle

It is easy to explain

A thistle is so prickly

And it gives you lots of pain

Though you try to cuddle

And hold it more and more

A thistle doesn’t want it

And makes you very sore

Never hug a thistle

Though her blossom’s like a star

If you try to get too close

She will leave you with a scar

Though you hold it to your heart

And you stroke its fuzzy leaves

The thistle with its stabbing thorns

Will really make you bleed

If you’ve ever hugged a porcupine

You know just how they bristle

Well the same thing happens often

When you try to hug a thistle

Never hug a thistle

I’ve said this twice or thrice

A thistle doesn’t like it

She just isn’t very nice

So, if you know a thistle

And I think perhaps you do

Keep your distance and just whistle

Or she will damage you

By Diane E. Dockum

June 9, 2013

A crow walks…

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A crow walks

the yellow line,

head bobbing,

wings folded,

boldly braving traffic,

focused on

the banana peel

glistening,

its heady scent

wafting with the breeze.

Just the thing

for his stash

of rotting rubbish.

Reluctant,

he relinquishes

the pavement

for a car,

only to return

cawing at the air

cheering his own gall.

 

By Diane E. Dockum

 

 

Rooster & Bear Go Fishing ~ Chapter 3

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Rooster & Bear Go Fishing

Chapter Three

By Diane Dockum

 Rooster and Bear sat on the bank of the stream with their fishing poles. Bear wished he were alone. Rooster was in his glory. The sun was bright and sparkled on the water. The air was fresh and clean.

Rooster threw back his head and let out a most awesome crow. He couldn’t help it. He was, after all, a rooster.

“SH-sh-sh” Bear said, clamping Rooster’s open beak shut with his big paw. “You’ll scare the fish away!” he reeled in his line with a jerk left and a jerk right, mumbling to himself.

Rooster stared and blinked his bright yellow eyes. He cast out his line again and wiggled his bottom down into a comfortable spot on the grass.

A beautiful rainbow colored trout leaped above the water and grabbed hold of Rooster’s line, yanking it away. It was a very big fish. Bear saw it and dropped his pole. He jumped up and started yelling instructions to Rooster.

“Hold on, hold on … now give him some slack, you got it, you got it! Start reeling him in! Pull this way – pull that way…”

“Quiet,” said Rooster, “you’ll scare him.” And he snapped his beak shut.

The big sparkling fish decided to swim up stream and Rooster, being a bird of meager* build, left the bank in a flutter of feathers and was yanked into the water, with a squawk. *(Here “meager” means slender, slight or mostly made of feathers, and not at all very strong.)

Bear’s mouth dropped open and his paws covered his face. (He was laughing, but didn’t want Rooster to see him.)

“Help!” cried Rooster as he was dragged over the rocks and up the stream.

Bear lumbered out into the water and cast his line as hard as he could. The hook attached itself to Rooster’s fishing vest and for a moment he was suspended above the water in a sort of tug-of-war moment.

Then the fish let go and Rooster flew backward toward Bear, who was standing on a large wet rock in the middle of the stream. Bear saw him coming, but didn’t think fast enough. Bear forgot to duck.

With his feet kicking wildly Rooster hit Bear in the middle of his chest and knocked him into the water.

Bear locked his right arm across Rooster’s throat, partly to save his life, and partly to shut him up, and swam heroically to shore.

“Sorry Bear,” Rooster crowed softly.

-end-

Rooster and Bear 1

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Rooster and Bear

CHAPTER ONE

By Diane Dockum

Bear lay on the sofa leisurely munching a bag of chips. The ball game was on television. He was alone. A contented lull came over him. He yawned with his paw full of chips halfway to his mouth.

The door flew open with a bang. Rooster stomped up the stairs into the living room. His beak was already going.

“We goin’ fishin’ Bear?” When you gonna clean that wagon out? We can do it today! Hey! I gotta idea, we could get a movie or a pizza, we could get a movie AND a pizza, whattya say? Come on, let’s go!”

Bear froze. This bird is going to drive me crazy, he thought. Rooster’s bright yellow eyes and flapping feathers were the last thing Bear wanted at that moment.

“I don’t think I want to DO anything, Rooster. I just want to watch this game.”

“Oh, OK, I’ll watch it with you.” And he wriggled his tail feathers deep into the couch cushions at Bear’s feet, forcing him to scrunch his length up uncomfortably.

Soon, Rooster’s left foot started tapping on the floor. He shifted back and forth to get more comfortable. Then he started to preen his feathers.

“Can’t you sit still!” Bear shouted.

“Got any popcorn? I feel peckish.”

Bear let a long tired sigh escape from his throat. He climbed up out of the sofa cushions and went to his kitchen cupboard. He carefully measured his private stash of popcorn, the gourmet kind and very expensive, into his hot air corn popper and flipped the switch. The machine began to whir and vibrate loudly. The heat rose in rippling waves. Bear knew he had to find the big bowl soon or it would be too late, the corn would start shooting out of the nozzle all over the place. He searched through the tall shelves, and down low through the underneath cupboards, but no bowl. He even reached way in as far as he could.

The corn was beginning to puff up. Frantically, Bear began flinging dishes out of the cupboards. Rooster darted into the kitchen to see what the racket was. When his claws hit the linoleum he slid into the side of the china closet and all Bear’s china dishes crashed down onto him. Just then, the popcorn let loose firing kernels like a Gatling gun out onto the floor. *

(*Gatling gun here means the popcorn was coming so fast out of the popper that Bear wished he had seven or eight hands to catch it all.)

Bear grabbed a dishtowel and tried his best to stop the barrage. Rooster’s feet were sticking up through a pile of china chips and corn.

Bear was groaning and trying to catch the corn in his mouth and in his dishpans. He had gotten the best corn money could buy. It expanded to nearly three times the normal size! The kitchen was soon buried in white puffy corn.

Then the popper stopped. The corn was all finished. From under the great pile of corn and crockery, Rooster made a soft crowing sound.

“Sorry, Bear.”

-end-

Unstructured Time

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Unstructured Time

 

You are eight, almost,

And it is 1962.

Kennedy is still President,

But you don’t know that

Or if you do, you don’t really

Think about it.

 

Your mother has gone into the store

To get some groceries, and

You and your sister

Are left in the 1957 Buick convertible.

The top is up because the sun is too

Bright, and makes the plastic seats hot.

 

Cars pass by, and pedestrians scuff

Along the hot sidewalk

No one knows that someday

There will be few who do not

Own a cellular phone,

So they walk along actually

Talking to their friends, who walk next

To them and make eye contact.

 

Panty hose have not been

Invented yet.

Phones have dials.

Televisions have knobs that you walk

Across the room to turn on.

Your mother still gives you a

Vitamin every morning

Before breakfast.

 

Your sister, who is five,

Sits in the back seat

Kicking the back of yours,

Thumping, thudding,

Annoying you,

As you stare through

The front window of the store

Waiting to see your mother paying

For the groceries.

 

There she is, in her red lipstick

And white cotton gloves.

Pulling paper money from her

Purse as the grocer packs the food

Carefully in cardboard boxes, and the tomato

carrier with the curved handle.

The store door jingles, as he smiles the

Boxes to the car,

Calls you Sport or shorty,

winks at your sister.

The trunk pops open

And you can’t see them anymore.

But you can hear them exchanging pleasantries.

 

“See you next time Mrs. ______,

Looks like it might rain tonight, the humidity is real high!”

You can smell the ripe bananas in the trunk,

And your mother has bought each of you

A red rubber ball with stars and stripes.

When you get home, you run around the yard

Just to feel the breeze.

 

 

 

Diane E. Dockum

March 15, 2012

 

 

 

 

 

Morning To Evening

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Morning To Evening

(3 Haiku)

 

Crystal clear sunlight

Incandescing everything

Snow on iced branches

 

Ice and snow flatten

The Birch and the Mountain Ash

So cold, deer huddle

 

The setting sun lights

The ice on the tree branches

They burst into flame

 

 

by Diane E. Dockum

1.15.2012