Home ⇒ 📌Judith Wright ⇒ The Old Prison
The Old Prison
The rows of cells are unroofed,
A flute for the wind’s mouth,
Who comes with a breath of ice
From the blue caves of the south.
O dark and fierce day:
The wind like an angry bee
Hunts for the black honey
In the pits of the hollow sea.
Waves of shadow wash
The empty shell bone-bare,
And like a bone it sings
A bitter song of air.
Who built and laboured here?
The wind and the sea say
-Their cold nest is broken
And they are blown away –
They did not breed nor love,
Each in his cell alone
Cried as the wind now cries
Through this flute of stone.
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