Diana Woodcock

Indistinguishable

I’m a tad bit like the Orange Tip— in day flight quite conspicuous. But come night, settled in on a flower head— wings folded—I blend in to my background, sound of jazz, become nearly indistinguishable.

No longer pressing myself into everything—stressing and obsessing—no longer devouring, I’m allowing life to be enough—simply breathing and being. I become light, weightless, and in the darkness mysteriously bright from the radiance and presence of something(one) immortal in the portal of silence. Tranquillité d’esprit. I am free. No longer in a whirlwind, I blend in.

Alone, I listen to the music of saxophone or trumpet, and realize there’s nowhere I’d rather be save perhaps in the company of a family of elephants, with its wise matriarch like an angel holding all the knowledge needed for survival.

In the darkness, blending in, I pray for those who sin against the elephants and earth, who kill and do irredeemable harm, and I search for words to trumpet the alarm.

Indistinguishable from the depth, I hold my breath and wait in the darkness, longing to hibernate through the oncoming winter.

Diana Woodcock

Diana Woodcock

What Could Be More Sublime?

Forget attempting to accomplish great things today or even completing just one item on the list. Let’s just attempt to do nothing. No haste, no worry

about the waste of time. Just be. Hard can that be? Be silent and desire only to be aware of the faraway star igniting Earth with its fire.

For a brief spell, set aside annihilating grief, all getting and spending to see in Nature what is ours* Be still for a while and feel

reconciled with Earth. Do nothing— not even prising chestnuts from their shells. Be with the bracts of bougainvillea, the bulbul and feral cats.

Though shadowed by death and conscious of mankind’s cruelty, sit quietly in the midst of what is boundless and unknown. Be at home there as in

a cozy well-worn armchair. Put aside politics and history—all the misery— and be only with poetry and music, perhaps Gregorian chants. Observe the ants,

the trees stirred by a breeze. Be both in the temporal and eternal—believe it is possible. Be as quiet as the dragonfly with her noiseless wings. Be invisible,

motionless—the to-do list lost or tossed in the trash—as you take your time to just be. What could be more sublime and more needed in these chaotic times? *Wordsworth

Rejection, Rock Dove-Style

He catches my eye as I walk by—he is doing his best to impress, flashing his iridescent neck, fluffing out his feathers till he appears twice his actual size.

I laugh as she turns her back on him, as if to say, In your dreams, buster!

Then I feel a stab of pity; he is, after all, quite pretty as pigeons go.

Further along the corniche,

I get my chance to follow her lead. He approaches from the east,

I from the west. I do my best to avoid eye contact—his as blue as the sea and sky just now.

Using the oldest line in the book, he says he’s lost, a stranger here, could I tell him, please, if he’s heading to the Sheraton. I smile and point to the pyramid. Of course, he laughs, how could he miss it, its unique shape

so obvious. Would I care to join him for a drink? Before I can think, I turn my back on him and say with a laugh, In your dreams, mister! as I lift off, following sister Rock dove’s* foxy lead.

*ancestor of the domestic pigeon

Diana Woodcock