Judith Wright

Here you will find the Poem Egrets of poet Judith Wright

Egrets

Once as I travelled through a quiet evening, 
I saw a pool, jet-black and mirror-still. 
Beyond, the slender paperbarks stood crowding; 
each on its own white image looked its fill, 
and nothing moved but thirty egrets wading - 
thirty egrets in a quiet evening. 

Once in a lifetime, lovely past believing, 
your lucky eyes may light on such a pool. 
As though for many years I had been waiting, 
I watched in silence, till my heart was full 
of clear dark water, and white trees unmoving, 
and, whiter yet, those thirty egrets wading.