Three cups
When I babysit -
Two cups at home.
One cup of tea in the
Afternoon,
Suggesting a fight
Against the 3 pm slump.
Transformation starts with pause.
Some days are extra,
And smiles are required.
Patience and kindness --
You need all the fruits of the spirit
When tired.
Three cups will do it,
Coffee or tea,
Plain or with sugar,
Makes no difference to me.
Coffee bold and tea serene --
They hold the key to who I long to be.
By Diane E. Dockum
©April 11, 2026
The night, which held its breath, gives one last sigh.
And muted stars are melting from the sky.
Rooftops wear a lingering silver gleam
And dreaming windows keep their lanterns nigh
In hedges, frost collects in quiet prayer.
The streets lie hushed, as if they too can sense
The first pale yawn of morning in the air --
Not yet a dawn, more hinted in suspense.
Time loosens laces; black begins to thin,
A soft surrender at the eastern sky
The world turns gently, letting morning in
With sunlight creeping forward with a sigh.
Then Sun, unmasked, arrives—so close, so new—
And dawn steps forward, rinsing night to blue.
By Diane E. Dockum
©April 10, 2026
Meditation in Motion
A gift to myself of wind chimes
I put them up today
three different sounds are out on the porch,
singing three melodic songs in the warming breeze.
One is high with tinkling sounds,
the other is a glass percussion menagerie
of fish mingling in an icy cooling sound,
the sun shining through makes them bright blue.
The low bass notes of the largest chime resound,
grounding the melody.
Each one has its own voice
to start the season; they have different feelings,
but together they have harmony to calm my heart.
The air feels gentler now,
So different from the howling blast of winter
I welcome spring as I hang the wind chimes.
Despite the sound of motorcycles next door,
barking dogs, trucks with air brakes rumbling—
I like to sit in the quiet as the sun goes down and listen
as the breeze plays the chimes.
The setting sun casts long golden pools,
and every note from the chimes feels like a reminder
of peace after the noise fades,
echoing the renewal of the season.
By Diane E. Dockum
©April 9, 2026
I cannot release nor keep
I want to hang on
I want to let go
I am a sweater caught on a nail
An unraveled sock
Where the material remains
But the shape has come undone
Looking backward and reaching forward
Is exhausting
I stand here with two faces
Leaving and staying
Turning in circles in the fading light
By Diane E. Dockum
©April 8, 2026
It whispers –
But not quite audible
A breath of something
At the back of your mind
A shadow of an image
Just out of focus
It catches at your awareness
At the edge of attention
It matters
It was something you felt
It was important
But you’ve lost the key
To that door
And you push at the panel
And jiggle the knob
A color you remember
A room
Someone speaking
Fragments that come together
Then part and fade away
Not forgotten, not remembered
That door knows your hand
But will not open with your push
And the day keeps moving
Cleaning, the radio plays a soft song
And there it is again
Like an old familiar fragrance
You pause, mid task
Close your eyes — you hover there
Waiting
In the shadowed garden of your mind
For the missing note
By Diane E. Dockum
©April 7, 2026
There is a lunatic in the driver seat
And we’re watching a lunar mission
And they’re looking at the dark side of the moon
There is an empty bed at the asylum
Waiting for a man
Watching himself give a speech
In a mirror framed in gold
And they’re counting craters out the window
On the dark side of the moon
We see the leader growl into the microphone
And drool on his lapel pin
And buff his nails on his chest
As he rips away our will to live
We are watching history made
Reaching into space farther out than any other
Lunar mission and at the podium
He shows us the gold encrusted ball room plan
Yet no plan for the war he started
There’s a lunatic driving the bobsled
And it’s straight down the mountain
Into an abyss
And they’re looking at the dark side of the moon
Taking pictures of the colors
On the dark side of the moon
By Diane E. Dockum
©April 6, 2026
A Sonnet of Solitude and Quiet Reflection
Upon this Easter dawn, the world is still.
We celebrate that He has conquered death.
Yet, no ecstatic joy fills up the rooms.
The quiet, heavy, settles where I will,
My family gathers elsewhere, joy apart,
Bound by their own, the hearth a gentle flame.
Yet silence presses deeply on my heart,
And solitude, unchosen, stakes its claim.
Outside, spring blooms and birdsong softly swells,
Yet here I sit, a shadow in the light.
In quiet, memories drift as time compels
A longing for the warmth withheld from sight.
So, Easter comes, profound and bittersweet,
In solitude, reflection makes me whole.
By Diane E. Dockum
©April 5, 2026
In my hometown there are some left turns down in the village. I think about their order as I mentally ride my bike through the downtown section. I ride across the bridge watching the traffic looking down at the rocks underneath the bridge. The river is shallow there. The first left turn is Island Street because it brings you out on an island where a few old bridges used to be, now there are a couple of houses. They are right out there almost in the river. The power station was built near there. Once you get over the bridge, the next left turn is Crabb Street.
There is a Crabb family that used to run the hardware store (A. B. Crabb) when I was a child. My best friend and I would ride our bikes down there to see the taxidermized (I think I may have made up that word) 2 headed calf and the gigantic moose with widespread antlers.
The next left turn is all the way down by the funeral home and that is Wheeler Lane now known as Wheeler Drive. It leads up to the Catholic Church (of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary) and goes by my old grade school on the elementary side. I say old, because it was closed when they built a new one attached to the High School. This one is now apartments.) It leads to the old dairy and the water tower out in the fields there. I remember our kindergarten class walked there one hot day in spring. Doctor Wheeler is the person the lane is named for because he invented a new kind of milk bottle back in the day involving sterilization to prevent disease. We got milk in little glass bottles delivered from Wheeler dairy to our kindergarten room. Cream on top, fresh and cold; Paper straws in a big white box. A nice cookie and milk break mid-morning. Very refreshing.
The next left turn is Hepburn St. There is an historic Wesleyan church on this corner, and it is where the Hepburn library stands, and further up you can go by the grade school on the other side. This library always gives me butterflies in my stomach especially the upstairs part. When I was 8 my mom took me to get a book and it was called Stars for Cristy. It got lost among the books we already had- and no one took me back to return it. Eventually forgotten, years went by. I never even read it, to this day. And now I don’t know where it is, and I feel such Catholic guilt because I never returned it. The fine for tardy books must be in the millions of dollars by now. Also, my Girl Scout troop met every Tuesday in the basement, which later became the temporary post office after the post office burned down. There is a winding staircase that we would sneak up, just to see where it went. Much creaking of stairs and whispers between me and my friend. We never made it all the way up. We heard noises and chickened out. Later I found that it led to the main library room.
The next left turn is Bank Street, because of obvious reasons. I’m not sure whether that bank is still open. It was the first bank I had an account then and was quaint and old fashioned with the counter and the caged teller stations with brass fittings. I could see the giant safe back behind the bars. My nose came to the edge of the counter as I slid my bank look across and deposited my $5 allowance.
I know there used to be a large stone church there on the east side of Bank Street, but in 1915 most of the village burned and that was one of the treasures lost in time.
Here is a picture of the church, circa 1910.
And this is how the lot looks today:
The next left turn is Hutchins Street. (I think. …I’m a bit fuzzy on whether Hutchins comes before or after Bank.) This street was primarily developed post-World War II, with residential homes. I have a deficit of memories about, or on Hutchins St. Of course, this all depends on which direction you are riding your bike. I am remembering riding toward the west.
After Bank Street is Sober Street. That is the one that becomes the River Road. I think the name has something to do with the fact that there used to be more bars than churches in the village. Or maybe this street had no taverns on it; anyway a name ironically chosen with tongue in cheek amusement.
It follows the river, and at one time it was the main road. It led to the paper mill crossing over the village and workers used to walk across on a footbridge to get to work. The River Road is long and winding, and after they built the state route 56, River Road became less used and the paper mill went in and out of use throughout the years. It is working now, I think — but am not sure. Alas, the paper mill is a right turn so does not count in my left turn recollections.
The next left turn is a little street that led to a classmate’s house, which I only remember once attending a pajama party there, and there is a restaurant on the corner. It’s still there. The street bares the same name from the old 1850s map, Second St., and is a dead end. It winds up around the Catholic cemetery, just beyond. it is a place where many of my relatives are buried my maternal grandparents included.
After that the main street, surprisingly called Main Street, travels up a steep hill and curves to the left on the way out of town.
By Diane E. Dockum
April 4, 2026
I’m watching clouds
From my couch
Through the window.
I’m lying on my back, looking up.
The wind is stirring
The sky.
I hear electric wires twitching in the wind
And rubbing against the house,
The wind roaring across the grass --
Old brown leaves are tossed
Up into the air and glide away
To visit someone else’s lawn,
Temporarily.
Time is passing.
The sun was seen today,
And patches of blue,
But now it is on the downward slide.
About an hour and a half left
Before it slips down behind the horizon
And the lights come on.
In another place the sun will rise.
A day has ended and begun.
Another day.
By Diane E. Dockum
April 3, 2026
They say spring is here, but spring is slow.
The moon has done her work—
Tugging the tides, thinning the darkness—
Yet here, in “Almost Canada”, winter feels like the default setting,
Snow is more familiar than bare ground.
I try to remember that every season has its ups and downs,
Its small mercies and minor cruelties.
Still, this time of year taxes my patience.
Spring around here negotiates—poorly.
It shows up with a clipboard and a vague sense of optimism,
Then immediately gets shoved back into the car
By a white cold windchill.
The forecast becomes a roulette wheel:
Sixty degrees at noon, a personal attack by 3 p.m.,
And by bedtime you’re Googling
Whether “snow pellets” counts as emotional abuse.
The sun stays out longer just to watch you get your hopes up,
And the driveway turns into that special April mix
Of black ice, gravel, and regret.
By Diane E. Dockum
©April 2, 2026
Marble Hill Press 