Be our heart’s north,
daybreak in our daughters’
breath, be the radiance
that listens
as we gather for the singing
of the wood.

Here is night. Somewhere,
to someone, fear is coming:
dark calls out the human
animal. Somewhere,
in someone, the animal
runs forth.

By night the wood sings.
In its radiance we find
ourselves altered.
Somewhere in the night
our hearts settle
and the breath alone keeps watch.

Judith Bishop

Judith Bishop won the Peter Porter Poetry Prize in 2006 and 2011.