Woman to Child.

You who were darkness warmed my flesh

where out of darkness rose the seed.

Then all a world I made in me;

all the world you hear and see

hung upon my dreaming blood.

There moved the multitudinous stars,

and coloured birds and fishes moved.

There swam the sliding continents.

All time lay rolled in me, and sense,

and love that knew not its beloved.

O node and focus of the world;

I hold you deep within that well

you shall escape and not escape-

that mirrors still your sleeping shape;

that nurtures still your crescent cell.

I wither and you break from me;

yet though you dance in living light

I am the earth, I am the root,

I am the stem that fed the fruit,

the link that joins you to the night.

Judith Wright was a prolific Australian poet, critic, and short-story writer, who published more than 50 books. Wright was also an uncompromising environmentalist and social activist campaigning for Aboriginal land rights. She believed that the poet should be concerned with national and social problems. At the age of 85, just before her death, she attended in Canberra at a march for reconciliation with Aboriginal people.