The Old Prison by Judith Wright
The rows of cells are unroofed, a flute for the wind's mouth, who comes with a breath of ice from the blue caves of the south.
O dark and fierce day: the wind like an angry bee hunts for the black honey in the pits of the hollow sea.
Waves of shadow wash the empty shell bone-bare, and like a bone it sings a bitter song of air.
Who built and laboured here? The wind and the sea say -Their cold nest is broken and they are blown away-
They did not breed nor love, each in his cell alone cried as the wind now cries through this flute of stone.
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