Australian Beauty
Life is full of miracles
(you’ll often hear them say);
But that’s for other people:
your life’s drab and grey.
Familiarity breeds contempt,
Nothing lifts your heart.
No beauty in your environment;
like you it falls apart.
Yet here and there around you,
where the world is worn and frayed,
a secret life of different hue
is vibrantly displayed.
Like a careworn spouse, it is invisible:
disguised in plain view.
By some illusion of camouflage,
accessible to very few.
Great beauty is offered to willing eyes;
Like peaches to willing hand.
A secret reward without a price,
Discerned by the mind of man.
Seek out the boldly buried treasure;
the chameleon at your feet.
Seek afresh forgotten pleasure,
or else your life forfeit.
MARK GREENLAND