Do I walk on virgin earth,

Do I walk on virgin earth,

Tread a thin line

Between undiscovered gems,

Golden nuggets that glisten with the

Sweet beauty of morning dew,

Stumble through bramble,

Bursting with rich fruit

Ripe for plucking,

Or do I skirt

Nothing but land fill.

A reckless clutter,

A litter full of trash

Thrown down from above.

Discarded remnants

Scarring the valley floor

With the memory of yesterday.

A once rich seam, so deeply mined

Now a shallow pit of landfill,

That glisters now, with nought but

Coloured glass and bottle tops.

Does the dry grey dust

That I kick up from the ashes

Of old bones

Cast any light

Upon buried treasures long ignored.

As barren walls grow higher,

And the muddied track burrows ever deeper,

Am I any closer to an answer.

Is it one I would hope to find

And is it worth the looking.

Is this a trail I ought to follow

Where shrunken dreams, so often found,

Strewn,

In jumbled phrases on the ground

Are second hand and thrown away.

No poetic mystery of Brigadoon,

Making history,

In its very own Centenary celebration,

Just the musings

Of a hapless journeyman,

Who travels these strange, chaotic lands

With eyes wide and ears pricked,

Searching for the real thing,

A philosopher’s stone.

A solid grain of truth,

That simply melts into the pages

And makes his-story sing.