Judith Wright's 'Rockpool'

Judith Wright's 'Rockpool' is a meditation on the human relationship with the universe. There are elements of humour and self-deprecation in this poem, but its questions are intensely serious. Are men and women simply organisms subject to process - birth, survival, death - as are the insects, birds and animals? Or are humans part of a higher, more spiritual order, destined to physically control the environment, to destroy it at will or to possess it in transcendental or scientific ways. 'Rockpool' can be looked at in isolation, but it should also be seen as part of the process of meditation and acceptance involved in the sequence of twelve poems labeled 'The Shadow of Fire: Ghazals' which concludes Wrights final collection 'Phantom Dwelling'. This was published in 1985 when she was seventy years old and is, I have been assured, her final poetic statement. 'Rockpool' is the first in this sequence of poems.