Age To Youth

The sooty bush in the park

is green as any forest

for the boy to lie beneath,

with his arms around his dearest;

the black of the back street

is washed as any cloud

when the girl and the boy

touch hands among the crowd.

No, nothing’s better than love,

than to want and to hold:

it is wise in the young

to forget the common world:

to be lost in the flesh

and the light shining there:

not to listen to the old

whose tune is fear and care –

who tell them love’s a drink

poisoned with sorrow,

the flesh a flower today

and withered by tomorrow.

It is wise in the young

to let heart go racing heart,

to believe that the earth

is young and safe and sweet;

and the message we should send

from age back to youth

is that every kiss and glance

is truer than the truth;

that whatever we repent

of the time that we live,

it is never what we give –

it is never that we love.

-- Judith Wright, from Five Senses