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

This selection, chosen by guest editor Kirsten Kowalewski, is from Holy Sparks by Diana Woodcock (Paraclete Press 2023).

Nature’s Revered Teachers

The old pine tree teaches wisdom,
and the cry of the wild bird expresses truth.
~ Zen koan

The silent stone—
how it lectures on the sacredness
of stillness and muteness.
                The Pleistocene,
                time of great extinctions,
                teaches mystery and curiosity—

was it a star dragon
thrusting out its tongue,
or the heat of meteoritic impact?
                Meltwater teaches chemistry
                and tragedy, and most important
                perhaps these days, humility.

The blushing peach—
what a wordless lesson
it can teach.
                The fire, tempering the sword,
                clarifies how we, too, require softening
                if we are to resist breaking.

The owl, turning its head
160 degrees, exemplifies that being
anticipatory is only half the story.
                La Venta and San Lorenzo,
                southern Mexico, from
                whose ground colossal stone heads

of the lost Olmec culture
were unearthed, teach the ghostly
hush of vanishment.
                Windborne swirls of silvery seeds
                suggest that man also has the need
                to launch off to new worlds.

And the poisoned dying bee,
in perfect stillness, teaches eternity—
takes us back to the Book of Romans,

all creation groaning for salvation.

Diana Woodcock has authored seven chapbooks and six poetry collections, most recently Heaven Underfoot (2022 Codhill Press Pauline Uchmanowicz Poetry Award), Holy Sparks (2020 Paraclete Press Poetry Award finalist), and Facing Aridity (2020 Prism Prize for Climate Literature finalist). A three-time Pushcart Prize nominee and Best of the Net nominee, she received the 2011 Vernice Quebodeaux Pathways Poetry Prize for Women for her debut collection, Swaying on the Elephant’s Shoulders. Currently teaching at VCUarts Qatar, she holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Lancaster University, where she researched poetry’s role in the search for an environmental ethic.

Kirsten Kowalewski has a master’s degree in library science and a specialist’s certificate in school media services for grades K-12. She reads widely. and is the editor for horror and dark fiction review website Monster Librarian. This is her third time curating for The Wardrobe.