The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Heaven Underfoot by Diana Woodcock

This selection, chosen by Guest Editor Claudia Santos, is from Heaven Underfoot by Diana Woodcock (Codhill Press 2023).

POSTCARDS FROM THE EVERGLADES

At dawn in a small plane,
we hovered above the panther’s
domain. No sighting, but still
it was an incredible thrill.

Today was a day to die for:
first time to see crocodile
and swallow-tailed kite.

Waited at dusk with the spider
lily in its mangrove swamp
for sphinx moth to come.

In pools beside Eco Pond
mid-day, watched a ballet:
graceful black-necked stilts.

Along a mangrove-fringed shore,
I took a solitary walk. But I wasn’t alone.
Perched on her royal palm throne,
a red-shouldered hawk with her yellow-
spotted beak kept her eyes on me.

Today in the basketwork of a cabbage
palm’s old fan hilts, I found air plants,
ferns, a lizard lounging.

In a hidden hammock, I pitied
sabal palmettos in the clutches
of strangler figs.

Listened intently tonight on Pine Island,
where I sleep, to vociferous whip-poor-wills
pursuing on the wing their insect meals.

Caught a glimpse of preglacial times
today on an outcrop of old rock
in the middle of a sawgrass river.

Diana Woodcock (she/her) has authored seven poetry collections, most recently Reverent Flora ~ The Arabian Desert’s Botanical Bounty (Shanti Arts, 2025), Heaven Underfoot (2022 Codhill Press Poetry Award), Holy Sparks (2020 Paraclete Press Poetry Award finalist), and Facing Aridity (2020 Prism Prize for Climate Literature finalist). Her eighth chapbook, Dark Flowers and Survivors, is forthcoming in May 2026 (dancing girl press& studio). A four-time Pushcart Prize 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.

Claudia Santos (she/her) is a Mexican reader and writer. She received the PECDA Colima 2024 writing grant for her non-fiction work and was a Sophia-FILCO Young Writers 2025 finalist for her poetry work. She is currently pursuing an MA in Children’s Literature as a EMJM scholarship recipient.