Judith
Wright is an Australian poet. Most of
her poems are about identity crisis and they talk about the lost identity of
the aborigines, the native Australians.
Through this poem the poet subtly expresses the historic event of the
fall of aborigines from the top of a mountain due to the compulsion of the
English people.
Judith
Wright begins the poem with beautiful description of Australian landscape
through images and metaphors. She
describes the dusk at the Australian coast with spectacular language. She describes the beach, the high cliff along
the coastline which is enveloped by the dark clouds, representing the invasion
of the English force. The English people
invaded the Australian coastline and compelled them to commit suicide by
jumping from the edge of the cliff. This
is said by using the image of the dark cloud swallowing the spine and forming a
quilt across the bone and the skull. The
fallen dead bodies of the native Australians are been lifted by the flies.
The
poet declares, “Here is a symbol…” the symbol of death, the symbol of darkness
and the symbol of ‘peace’ arousing from darkness and slavery. The English people did not inform the
aborigines of their arrival. Even their
ships failed to send them signals of dangers.
The present life of the native Australians is highly paradoxical in
nature. Their days are measured by the
nights, their speech by silence and their love by its end. They feel timid in the their home land.
Judith
Wright contrasts the life of the native Australians with that of the English
rulers by posing poignant questions. She
asks that all humans have the same qualities, though different in their skin. We all eat the same food, we all have same
blood and we are all same. There is no
one superior to another. She questions
why the English rulers do not understand this concept of equality.
The
poem concludes that by no means the Australians could be severed from the
native land. They would be like the
shadow of the young children, forever lingering in the barren lands of
Australia and never could be driven away.
