The rose has come into the garden,
from Nothingness into Being
Once I did not know the birds were described,
classified, observed, fixed in their proper localities.
Each bird that sprang from its tree, passed overhead, hawked from the bough,
was sole, new, dressed as no other was dressed.
Any leaf might hide the paradise-bird.
Once I believed any poem might follow my pen,
any road might beckon my feet to mapless horizons,
any eyes that I met, any hand that I took, and word that I heard
might pierce to my heart, stay forever in mine, open worlds on its hinge.
All then seemed possible; time and world were my own.
Now that I know that each star has its path, each bird
is finally feathered and grown in the unbroken shell,
each tree in the seed, each song in the life laid down --
is the night sky any less strange; should my glance less follow the flight;
should the pen shake less in my hand?
No, more and more like a birth looks the scheduled rising of Venus;
the turn of the wing in the wind more startles my blood.
Every path and life leads one way only,
out of continual miracle, through creation's fable.
over and over repeated but never yet understood,
as every word leads back to the blinding original Word.
-- Judith Wright