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Judith Wright - Lyrebirds
Work rating: Medium

Over the west side of the mountain, 
that’s lyrebird country. 
I could go down there, they say, in the early morning, 
and I’d see them, I’d hear them. 

Ten years, and I have never gone. 
I’ll never go. 
I’ll never see the lyrebirds - 
the few, the shy, the fabulous, 
the dying poets. 

I should see them, if I lay there in the dew: 
first a single movement 
like a waterdrop falling, then stillness, 
then a brown head, brown eyes, 
a splendid bird, bearing 
like a crest the symbol of his art, 
the high symmetrical shape of the perfect lyre. 
I should hear that master practising his art. 

No, I have never gone. 
Some things ought to be left secret, alone; 
some things – birds like walking fables – 
ought to inhabit nowhere but the reverence of the 
heart.
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