Hobble Creek Review
| Diana Woodcock |
OFF-SEASON IN PARADISE
Soft-shelled turtles
seeming imperturbable
in Taylor Slough.
Lubber grasshoppers
making their way by day
to the string lilies.
Solitary Rockland morning
glory telling its ancient story
of endangerment.
Golden spinner stringing
its opportune web between two
Sabal palm fronds.
Zebras fluttering as if floating
on the margins of hardwood hammocks.
After dark, moonflowers scenting
mangroves, attracting sphinx moths
in droves. Ghost orchids
drawing in the Giant Sphinx
to their cypress swamps.
Dragonflies—pennants,
green darners, pondhawks,
blue dashers—and Common
nighthawks feeding
on a million mosquitoes.
Around shallow pond edges
and flooded depressions,
little grass, green and pig frogs.
Someone’s playing marbles:
hear the click-clicking of
cricket frogs. A lamb bleating
on a rainy night: eastern narrow-
mouthed frog. How utterly odd,
how sublime hoards of tourists
gone at this most magical time.
Soft-shelled turtles
seeming imperturbable
in Taylor Slough.
Lubber grasshoppers
making their way by day
to the string lilies.
Solitary Rockland morning
glory telling its ancient story
of endangerment.
Golden spinner stringing
its opportune web between two
Sabal palm fronds.
Zebras fluttering as if floating
on the margins of hardwood hammocks.
After dark, moonflowers scenting
mangroves, attracting sphinx moths
in droves. Ghost orchids
drawing in the Giant Sphinx
to their cypress swamps.
Dragonflies—pennants,
green darners, pondhawks,
blue dashers—and Common
nighthawks feeding
on a million mosquitoes.
Around shallow pond edges
and flooded depressions,
little grass, green and pig frogs.
Someone’s playing marbles:
hear the click-clicking of
cricket frogs. A lamb bleating
on a rainy night: eastern narrow-
mouthed frog. How utterly odd,
how sublime hoards of tourists
gone at this most magical time.
Diana Woodcock’s first poetry chapbook, Travels of a Gwai Lo, was
published in 2009 by Toadlily Press, whose editors nominated the title
poem for a Pushcart Prize. Mandala, which is dedicated to the Tibetan
people, was published in 2009 as the 14th in Foothills Publishing’s Poets
on Peace series. Her chapbook, In the Shade of the Sidra Tree, is
forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in 2010. In 2009, she received first,
second and third prizes from Artists Embassy International and an
International Publication Award from Atlanta Review. Recipient of the 2007
Creekwalker Poetry Prize, her poems have appeared in Best New Poets
2008, Nimrod, Crab Orchard Review, Atlanta Review, and other journals and
anthologies. Currently teaching at Virginia Commonwealth University in
Qatar, she has lived and worked in Tibet, Macau and Thailand.
published in 2009 by Toadlily Press, whose editors nominated the title
poem for a Pushcart Prize. Mandala, which is dedicated to the Tibetan
people, was published in 2009 as the 14th in Foothills Publishing’s Poets
on Peace series. Her chapbook, In the Shade of the Sidra Tree, is
forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in 2010. In 2009, she received first,
second and third prizes from Artists Embassy International and an
International Publication Award from Atlanta Review. Recipient of the 2007
Creekwalker Poetry Prize, her poems have appeared in Best New Poets
2008, Nimrod, Crab Orchard Review, Atlanta Review, and other journals and
anthologies. Currently teaching at Virginia Commonwealth University in
Qatar, she has lived and worked in Tibet, Macau and Thailand.
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