Life-and-Destruction                                                            Page 20

The tree of fire is found in Judith Wright's three flame-tree poems:

"Flame-tree in a Quarry" (C.P. p.60), "The Flame-tree" (C.P. p.95) and

"The Flame-tree Blooms" (C.P. p.287). Each of these poems is a tribute to

life, death and love. In "The Flame-tree Blooms" the poet gives to the tree the

same life force she takes into herself as maker, with the same sense of ritual:

suddenly, wholly, ceremoniously

it puts off every leaf and stands up nakedly,

calling and gathering,

every capacity in it, every power,

drawing up from the very roots of being

this pulse of total red that shocks my seeing

into an agony of flower.

The tree of "The Maker" lives with the same "pulse" of life. The roots plunging

downwards and the flame flaring out evoke the primal fire said to be at the

centre of the earth. The purifying qualities of fire are placed side by side with

the life-giving powers of light and heat:

My days burn with the sun

my nights with moon and star

Even the nights "burn" with the flame of life and the poet-maker intensifies the

heat into a burning focussed point of light:

All things that glow and move,

all things that change and pass,

I gather their delight

as in a burning-glass ;

all things I focus in

the crystal of my sense.