The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Holy Sparks by Diana Woodcock

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Subhanallah

When Muslims encounter God’s miracles in or through nature,
they whisper this Arabic word.

If you complain the desert is drab,
I’ll know you’ve never watched it
transform under the sunset’s glow.

If you insist heaven is a place above
and beyond, I’ll know you have yet to open
your eyes and ears to what’s right here—

gods dwelling among us—have yet
to reverse the belief that the species Homo
sapiens is the center of the universe.

If you wail all is ugly and broken,
I’ll know you have failed to go
into the service of beauty—to yield

to curiosity and the mystery
of the god within, the divinity
of Earth herself, to spend

a night on a forest floor in the sight
of bears and owls, to awaken to the call
of birds and the warmth of the rising sun.

If you decide you’re done, there’s nothing
more to live for, I’ll know it’s time
to take you by the hand and guide you

to the seashore or riverbank where you can
witness both heron and fish thanking their lucky
stars to be alive right where they are.