How to Endure These Dark Times
Because the birth of this Earth
is nothing more nor less than miraculous,
I’ve placed a pot of red impatiens
on the deck next to the red feeder
full of sugar water—both for the Ruby-
throated hummers who spend summers
here with me. For the Downy wood-
peckers and wrens, I’ve inserted
a suet cake into the wire basket.
And for the finches, I’ve hung up
a thistle sock on one buddleia limb.
Now I wait, anticipate
their arrival, praying for everyone’s
safe passage and survival.
Beyond the realities of climate
crisis, genocide, ongoing
colonialism, political
division, I make the decision
to celebrate my sense of kinship
with all that exists.
This is how to endure
these dark times:
Focus on one Yellow-shafted
Flicker pecking about
on the lawn. Before long,
you’ll forget everything else
as you watch him/her grazing
and finding just enough
sustenance for her existence.
As for my own,
only when I glimpse
life’s sacredness revealed in
non-human creatures, do I
sense the Creator’s presence,
and ascend into the hill
of the Lord to be absorbed
by His/Her holiness as I witness
one tiny Blue worshipping
at the honeysuckle.
Diana Woodcock 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). A three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, she received the 2011 Vernice Quebodeaux 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.
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