Section: «Poems»
Verse (ancient Greek ὁ στίχος — row, structure), a term in versification used in several meanings:
artistic speech organized by division into rhythmically commensurate segments; poetry in the narrow sense; in particular, it implies the properties of versification of a particular tradition ("antique verse", "Akhmatova's verse", etc.);
a line of poetic text organized according to a certain rhythmic pattern ("My uncle of the most honest rules").
All Things Conspire
All things conspire to hold me from you –even my love,since that would mask you and unname youtill merely woman and man we live.All men wear arms..
© Judith Wright
Blue Arab
The small blue Arab stallion dances on the hilllike a glancing breaker, like a storm rearing in the sky,In his prick-ears,the wind, that wanderer and..
© Judith Wright
The Sisters
In the vine-shadows on the veranda;under the yellow leaves, in the cooling sun,sit two sisters. Their slow voices runlike little winter creeks..
© Judith Wright
Turning Fifty
Having known war and peaceand loss and finding,I drink my coffee and waitfor the sun to rise,With kitchen swept, cat fed,the day will quiet,I taste..
© Judith Wright
To A Child
When I was a child I sawa burning bird in a tree.I see became I am,I am became I see.In winter dawns of frostthe lamp swung in my hand.The battered..
© Judith Wright
Drought Year
That time of drought the embered airburned to the roots of timber and grass.The crackling lime-scrub would not bearand Mooni Creek was sand that..
© Judith Wright
Lyrebirds
Over the west side of the mountain,that’s lyrebird country.I could go down there, they say, in the early morning,and I’d see them, I’d hear them.Ten..
© Judith Wright
Woman To Child
You who were darkness warmed my fleshwhere out of darkness rose the seed.Then all a world I made in me;all the world you hear and seehung upon my..
© Judith Wright
Northern River
When summer days grow harshmy thoughts return to my river,fed by white mountain springs,beloved of the shy bird, the bellbird,whose cry is like..
© Judith Wright
Naked Girl And Mirror
This is not I. I had no body once-only what served my need to laugh and runand stare at stars and tentatively danceon the fringe of foam and wave and..
© Judith Wright
The Trains
Tunnelling through the night, the trains passin a splendour of power, with a sound like thundershaking the orchards, wakingthe young from a dream..
© Judith Wright
The Bull
In the olive darkness of the sally-treessilently moved the air from night to day.The summer-grass was thick with honey daisieswhere he, a curled god..
© Judith Wright
Train Journey
Glassed with cold sleep and dazzled by the moon,out of the confused hammering dark of the trainI looked and saw under the moon's cold sheetyour..
© Judith Wright
Egrets
Once as I travelled through a quiet evening,I saw a pool, jet-black and mirror-still.Beyond, the slender paperbarks stood crowding;each on its own..
© Judith Wright
Metho Drinker
Under the death of winter's leaves he lieswho cried to Nothing and the terrible nightto be his home and bread. 'O take from methe weight and..
© Judith Wright
Sonnet For Christmas
I saw our golden years on a black gale,our time of love spilt in the furious dust.'O we are winter-caught, and we must fail,'said the dark dream..
© Judith Wright
The Killer
The day was clear as fire,the birds sang frail as glass,when thirsty I came to the creekand fell by its side in the grass.My breast on the bright..
© Judith Wright
The Company Of Lovers
We meet and part now over all the world;we, the lost company,take hands together in the night, forgetthe night in our brief happiness, silently.We..
© Judith Wright
Bora Ring
The song is gone; the danceis secret with the dancers in the earth,the ritual useless, and the tribal storylost in an alien tale.Only the grass..
© Judith Wright
South Of My Days
South of my days' circle, part of my blood's country,rises that tableland, high delicate outlineof bony slopes wincing under the winter,low trees..
© Judith Wright
Late Spring
The moon drained white by daylifts from the hillwhere the old pear-tree fallen in stormsprings up in blossom still.Women believe in the moon:this..
© Judith Wright
The Surfer
He thrust his joy against the weight of the sea;climbed through, slid under those long banks offoam--(hawthorn hedges in spring, thorns in the face..
© Judith Wright
Failure Of Communion
What is the space between,enclosing us in oneunited person, yetdividing each alone.Frail bridges cross from eyeto eye, from flesh to flesh,from word..
© Judith Wright
Magpies
Along the road the magpies walkwith hands in pockets, left and right.They tilt their heads, and stroll and talk.In their well-fitted black and..
© Judith Wright
Woman To Man
The eyeless labourer in the night,the selfless, shapeless seed I hold,builds for its resurrection day---silent and swift and deep from sightforesees..
© Judith Wright