by Judith Wright
Only those coral insects live
that work and endure under
the breakers' cold continual thunder.
They are the quick of the reef
that rots and crumbles in a calmer water.
Only those men survive
who dare to hold their love against the world;
who dare to live and doubt what they are told.
They are the quick of life;
their faith is insolence; joyful is their grief.
This is life's promise and accomplishment-
This is life's promise and accomplishment-
a fraction-foothold taken.
Where dark eroding seas had broken,
the quick, the sensitive, the lover,
the passionate touch and intergrowth of living.
Alive, alive, intent,
love rises on the crumbling shells it shed.
The strata of the dead
burst with the plumes and passions of the earth.
Seed falls there now, birds build, and life takes over.
Other blog pieces featuring the poetry of Judith Wright are here.
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