No one ever told me

How lazy I would be

How loneliness begets

Untidiness

No one ever told me

How the feeling of fear

Not fear itself

Lives in your gut

Some days

I wallow in self-pity

Other days

I push myself too far

No one ever tells you

How the silence

Makes you feel

Slightly concussed

And that sleep

Feels like a warm mud

Sucking you in

Talking myself through

Each day and longer

Evening

I chide myself

I coax myself

Through this stage

Of marriage

This stage of love

©March 30, 2025, Diane E. Dockum

Crissy-Crossy
Backy-Forthy
Went the tracks
Upon the snow

Gray and bushy
Tails a shaking
Up the trees 
And branches go

Deer and dogs
Squirrel and bunny
Skim and scamper
To and fro

Snow is melting
More is coming
Wind and rain
With ice and snow

Busy hooves and
Fuzzy footies
Beating tracks
Across the yard

Dark of night
And new moon coming
Stars and cold
Will freeze it hard.


By Diane E. Dockum
©December 30, 2024

An old shoulder bag 
Caught my attention
In the basement
While I was doing laundry

And I thought it was
A lovely bag
With the leather
Embossment of flowers

And maybe I could 
Use it again
And the shape
Was so generous

But it was covered
With a green furry mold
I put it on the counter
By the sink thinking

I could save it
But then I realized
It was organic
And the leather

Was decaying
It was too far gone
So, I pushed it
Into the bin

With a little pain
In my heart
And a lot
Of regret


by Diane E. Dockum
©April 14, 2023

Down a narrow winding lane, there suddenly appears
A little house, an olden house, gray and spent with years.
Once you've seen the lonely spot, your thoughts cannot depart,
Because the silence reigning there, lingers in your heart.

Greenest fields, forgotten lie, untouched by knowing hand;
Those loving hands and hearts now gone -- none to understand.
Save for the low, soft chirping of a friendly little bird,
There is naught to break the silence -- no other sound is heard.

What a strange enchantment seems to linger ev'rywhere,
While through trees and grasses, moves a vision, soft and fair.
Up the hill ascending, lightly through the mist she glides,
With her eyes fixed on the old house, where she still resides.

To the old house, as to heaven, o'er the shady lawn,
Drifts the dear old soul so sweetly, at the break of dawn.
To the east-view window walking, to her old armchair,
She gently whispers to a loved one, sitting near her there,
"Nowhere else in all the world, shines the sun so fair.
"Shines the sun so fair, my dear, shines the sun so fair."



By
EDITH SANBORN COBBLE
From her book, Drifting Sands

New Voices Publishing Company
New York: 1952

The poem posted tonight is one from my Grandmother, Edith Sanborn Cobble, written around 1952. I think she was remembering her dear mother, my Great Grandmother who had died. I imagine she was relating a comforting thought of her mother returning to sit in her armchair by the home fire on the old homestead farm in Northern New York.

I have a legacy of poetry in my family. Both of my parents had Mothers who wrote. Whenever I feel stuck in my writing, I read one of theirs. Once in a while I feel that their voices should be heard, even though they are no longer here.