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

---

Editor’s Note

I owe Diana Woodcock, guest editor Kirsten Kowalewski, and Sundress’s subscribers an apology. When I scheduled the posts of Ms. Woodcock’s poems, I was on painkillers after surgery a few days prior. I felt totally fine! I thought I was totally fine! I was not totally fine, and there were a number of errors in the posts. Ms. Woodcock deserves her poems to be shared as written, and you deserve to read them as such! The original posts have been corrected, and I’m posting all of the poems from Holy Sparks that we featured last week again here, in their correct form. I’m sorry for my error in judgment.

Krista Cox, Managing Editor of The Wardrobe

Camels Going to Market

In the bed of a Toyota truck,
they ride, looking dignified—
                nonchalant and unconcerned
                as cars and lorries on all sides churn,

some speeding past, some tail-gating.
Their eyes, long double-lashed, ask
                What’s the rush? Why not try waiting
                your turn, this lovely autumn morning?

I’ve watched them unbridled,
                grazing the rodat, or stretched out
in close proximity to their beloved
                Ziziphus nummularia,

                lazing away the hot midday.
Calmly one gazes my way,
demanding respect. I would protect
                all three from the day’s ordeal.

No doubt they’ve served their masters well.
                One rises slowly, sinuously
                from its sitting position, hinting
                                of growing dissent, no menace

in her eyes—only a dispassionate gaze
                void of fear or trepidation
                as she moves nearer her destination.
                                Camels so full of grace,

                                heading to the marketplace,
my heart grieved to see them come
to this sad plight. Yet I take note:
                each one’s appareled in celestial light.

---

Watching Zebras and Doves

Northern end near the pyramid-
shaped Sheraton, a small population
of Zebra doves resides and breeds,
getting everything they need
from gardens and grounds

around the hotel. Most likely
descendants of escaped caged birds,
fending for themselves now,
seeking out seeds and insects.
Geopelia striata from Southeast Asia—

slender, black and white on brown
upperparts. Watching them, taking
my time, Africa still on my mind,
I recall the Burchell’s zebras,
observed just days ago grazing

the savanna, and doves—
Red-eyed, Laughing, Emerald-
spotted, Wood, Cape Turtle,
African Mourning adorning
the bush with grace.

Watching zebras and doves,
one begins to believe again,
to understand why the ancients
worshipped animals and birds.
These gentle ones hurt no one,

take only enough to subsist,
are neither greedy nor needy,
ask nothing of anyone. Oh,
to approach the world with such
non-aggression and clear vision.

---

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.

---

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

---

Envisioning Mercy

Mercy shall not be for man alone,
but shall go beyond and embrace the whole world.
~ Swami Vivekananda

The elephant with severe arthritis
is forced to perform,
its owner blind to her pain,
deaf to her moans.

Feel for a human pulse
within the phenomenal world’s
workings. Stand
at the still point of darkness:

observe Earth hanging
by a thread. Gandhi once said
you can judge a society’s morality
by how it treats its animals.

Once, I swayed for nearly half a day
on an elephant’s shoulders.
Arrived sunset, Karen village
deep in Thailand’s jungle.

When the harness was removed,
and I saw the raw groove
rubbed by the friction of it against hide,
I cried. There were tears, as well,

in the old elephant’s eyes.
Lying awake that night
on the floor of my host’s hut,
I wondered what the elephant was up

to, tied just outside the door,
taken so many years before
from her family. Lonely,
               solitary.

If I could have,
I would have taken her
into my arms and rocked her
all night long, wiping the tears

from her eyes, the ooze
from her weeping side’s
wound. If she was up to it,
I would have stolen her away,

ushered her back to the scene
of the crime, searched high and low
till we could find her family.
Feel for a human pulse.

Stand at the still point
of darkness. Imagine
what lies beyond pain
and starkness. Dare ask

the question yet again,
What will you gain,
though you rule the world,
if you lose your soul?