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They are looking for him now in the vinescrubover the hill,but I think he is alone in a place that Iknow well.Is the boy lost? Then I know where he isgone.He is climbing to Paradise up a river ofstars and stone.It may have been because the contemporarycritics expected some blending of the regionalismof her first volume and the various interpretationsof love that coloured her secondthat they paused uncertainly before the third.Its significance seems to be crystallized in fourlines from the title-poem, which is placed rightat the very end of the book:In the land of oblivionamong the black-mouthed ghosts,I knew my Selfthe sole reality.Henceforth and in many different ways, thepoet is to embark upon a voyage of discoveryin Self, a Self that is not merely of this timebut in all time. There are hints of a growingwonder at the miracle of life and of the lifegivingforce, love. This is the theme of theopening poem, "Dark Gift", in which the poetmarvels at the growth of a flower that "beginsin the dark where life is not" until with thecalyx folded she cries:Open, green hand, and givethe dark gift you hold.Oh wild mysterious gold!Oh act of passionate love!There is also a growing preoccupation herewith the receding of youth, with the approachof age, although she is still only in her latethirties. Often she re-states with no less forceand vision the regionalism of the best poems inThe Moving Image. Thus we have "ErodedHills", "Drought", "Unknown Water", "TheAncestors" and most memorably "Old House",which begins:Where now outside the weary house thepepperina,that great broken tree, gropes with its blindhandsand sings a moment in the magpie's voice,there he stood once,that redhaired man my great-great-grandfather,his long face amiable as an animal's,and thought of vines and horses.He moved in that mindless country like ared ant,running tireless in the summer heat amongthe trees—the nameless trees, the sleeping soil, theoriginal river—and said that the eastern slope would dofor a vineyard.It was no doubt the diversity of subjectsdealt with in this third volume which arousedsome misgivings in the minds of contemporarycritics, which caused T. Inglis Moore to feelthat "the poet has stopped on her path to lookaround, unsure of her way".'* But one cannotshare Elyne Mitchell's regret that often herlanguage and imagery were "similar to thoserecording the spiritual journeys of otherpoets''.'^ What different language or imagerycould possibly be desirable for "Birds", one ofher most profound poems?Whatever the bird is, is perfect for the bird.Weapon kestrel hard as a blade's curve,thrush round as a mother or a full drop ofwaterfruit-green parrot wise in his shriekingswerve—all are what bird is and do not reach beyondbird.Must we deny the validity of "weapon kestrel","blade's curve", "round as a mother or a fulldrop of water?" One wonders whether thispoem arose out of the fragmentary thought inR. D. FitzGerald's Essay on Memory: thatsometimes one sees "the bird's flight as thebird". Judith Wright is here emphasizing theapparent simplicity of motives guiding the livesof the "cruel kestrel", the "thrush in thetrembling dew beginning to sing", the "parrotclinging and quarrelling and veiling his queereye". This is contrasted with the complexityof human motives:But I am torn and beleaguered by my ownpeople.The blood that feeds my heart is the bloodthey gave meandmy heart is the house where they gatherand fight for dominion—all different, all with a wish and a will tosave me,to turn me into the ways of other people.The poem concludes with a yearning to.... melt the past, the present and thefuture in oneand find the words that lie behind all theselanguages.WESTERLY, No. 1, MARCH, 1968 47