I walk among the stones Imagining my body lying Beneath the ground I walk among the stones Wondering where to bury your ashes I am here to buy the ground Our bodies will lie under Side by side Urn by urn To add another stone marker Here in the quiet field where who knows what went on in ancient times I walk and open my spirit To feel the pull To feel the answer I walk and open my heart I think of sleep I think of eternity I think of earthly remains I find our spot I sign the papers Here we will be Maybe remembered By Diane E. Dockum ©September 26, 2022
Poetry, Diane E. Dockum
Solitude
A leaf shudders Without sound As the breeze passes by And no one sees The movement The sun slides across To the other side of day The cicada sings To hear itself The chair on the dock Rocks gently When ripples lift The wooden wharf Eventually two moons One high One floating As the river changes Places with the rain Do tear drops Return as clouds And rain again over Fields of roses? By Diane E. Dockum August 29, 2022
Once
Once, when butter was hard and the best toast came out of a Sunbeam toaster, I ate a vitamin that tasted like rainbows and I held it on my tongue as long as I could Once, when the sun was so hot my sneakers melted on the railroad tracks and the smell of creosote filled my nostrils, I dropped my father's (secretly borrowed) thermos in a ditch, and the inside smashed to pieces I thought, OH NO! he's going to be mad I left it in the ditch My bologna sandwich was dry on the way down It stuck in my throat Once, when the sky was just a blue sheet above the barn, I asked what color God was (trying to figure out if the sky was God) My grandmother said God is the color of all things all at once I sat on the front steps thinking about that and a crow walked by and pecked my ankle OW! I said, and jumped up He got scared and flew off down the old dirt road Disappearing into the thick trees By Diane E. Dockum ©July 29, 2022
There is So Much More to Grief
There is so much more to Grief
When your Husband dies
Sad and lonely, yes
But Grief is so much more besides
Not wanting to go home
Because home was a person
Not a house
Wandering restlessly around your
House as if you were searching for
Something lost, but not sure what it is
Having all kinds of free time
But no interest in your hobbies
No desire to finish that book
No interest in those TV shows
Turning on the TV or Radio just
Because you can’t stand the silence
Turning off the TV or Radio
Because you cannot stand the noise
Having no interest in cooking
A real meal for yourself
Filling your empty place with
This and that from the fridge
Faking interest in topics
That no longer relate in some way
To the love you have lost
Losing an entire day
To nothing but looking at hundreds of
Pictures and reading cards you exchanged
Over and over
Replaying conversations in your head
Reliving those last few precious moments
And desperately wanting to
Be sure they knew just how much they meant to you
It is changes in your body –
Finding gobs of hair in the shower
Feeling aches in your joints and muscles
Including your heart
It is staying up till tomorrow
Resisting sleep trying to figure out
Who you even are now
And what the point of anything is
It is feeling stuck
In a deep dark well
And no one knows
Where you are.
©Diane E. Dockum
June 28, 2022
Other Voices in the Room
OTHER VOICES IN THE ROOM – The absence of –. The hours pass. Artificial sound becomes A crutch of sorts In the waiting rooms In this house of ours Where you are not –. Where you are no more Yet are So much here –. You are here with me In the echoes of my thoughts And my footsteps on the stairs. You are behind me With your hand on the Small of my back As we climb to our bed And listen to Bedtime stories on the Artificial app, And as we drift off to sleep Those other voices in the room Fade into the absence of your Body and The hours pass. ©Diane E. Dockum Thursday, June 9th, 2022
Two Days
His last day. The wait, the false hope Chatting to relatives Wasting my words Holding my calm Watching Wishing for privacy Not getting time alone Too much talking Closeting emotions Being his rock
First day of widowhood. Gaping void Shock, emptiness Loud silence Too much to think about Too much fog in my brain Heart crushing ache Crashing reality Vacant recliner Profound loneliness Pictures of memories
by Diane E. Dockum ©April 10, 2022
Vaguely Spring
It’s almost here that time of year when seasons change The ground takes off her wedding gown exposing brown and green a faded green awaits the sun for now, she sleeps while seedlings stretch and yawn her child-lings yet to be And gentle wisps of moving air will jostle stubborn leaves Like teacups on the sodden grass they fill with sugar snow and yet the sun, though cold and vague, shows dusty falling flakes Here and there their contrast shows against the hedge’s row. On the tops of cedar tips, the early spring remains just out of reach and white still grips the fingertips of tender growing trees.
by Diane E. Dockum
© April 1, 2022
The Presence of Your Absence
The presence of your absence Walks with me today Every cell of my body Aches and wanted you to stay I feel paralyzed, suspended As if half of me is gone But my thoughts persist and tell me To survive, I must walk on This path is not mapped out No signposts point the way Though others have walked before me Their footprints have washed away My mirror shows a different face Of whom I cannot say The person that I was before Went away with you that day The presence of your absence Walks beside me every day On a journey through the darkest night I try to find my way My view from this new window Of the world’s forever changed The person that I was before Will never be the same ©Diane E. Dockum 10-18-2021
MY LOVE
I would rather stay asleep than wake
Remembering that you have died
The stillness of the house
Is always a rude awakening
Throwing salt into my wounds
I do not want to spend my life picking at scabs
I do not want to spend my life
Forgetting about our love
Or waving goodbye as you recede
Into the aether
Your energy and heat
Are something I ache for
You have changed from flesh and blood
And beauty to something new
I hang pictures of your past faces
on the walls
Memories of your touch
Invade my mind at odd moments
I overflow with tears
Flashing back to your last breath
You were still warm when
I closed your eyes and mouth
And slipped your wedding ring
From your finger onto mine
Did you hear my last goodbye?
Did you hear my last I love you?
Did you feel
my last kisses?
Diane E. Dockum
August 29, 2021
My Father’s Wallet
There was no money
Left inside,
Taken, I suppose, for purposes
Of need at the time of his passing.
The wallet, a tri-fold
Of black leather,
Soft and fragrant,
Still held photos of his grandchildren
And his “Order Of Old Bastards”
Membership card, and his
Drivers license, social security
And pistol permits
For the .357 Colt revolver
The .22 Ruger, the .22 Smith & Wesson
And his Pinkerton Detective card
From 1962.
Like the folded napkin
Of a special guest who has left
The dinner table too soon
On urgent business
It remains here in his absence
And I can imagine
His spirit is as near
As the memories he left behind.
©Diane E. Dockum, April 6, 2015
Marble Hill Press 