Ruth Flint Miller, 1790-1830

Two Dorieces about the same woman

I.
Ruth Flint Miller,
wife of the first
Territo'rial
governor, stalled.

Pioneer she
wasn't! She could
not bear going
to a wild place.

Seven children
are a handful;
try moving them
to Arkansas!

"Thanks, but no, thanks!
I'll stay where it's
safe and secure
among my kin."
~~~~

II.
My husband went
to Arkansas
as governor,
eighteen-nineteen.

I shuddered: that
wild place, and our
seven children?
Unthinkable!

Repugnant! I'm
no pioneer!
New England's my
security.

I'm completely
happy to be
a stay-at-home
wife and mother.
~~~~
Information from Anne McMath's First Ladies of Arkansas

The Doriece poetry pattern was created by the late Maggie Aldridge Smith of Siloam Springs AR. The subject is a woman, the stanza form is four lines of four syllables each. Four stanzas comprise the pattern. It can be rhymed or unrhymed.

These poems written August  1990, published in my second chapbook, Variations.

c 2012
by Pat Laster dba lovepat press