Beauty Unremarked

This wee continent of life
Entwined in a small living sea
All of it ancient beyond my ken
I could not count out the years
In all my time

But the years of consciousness
I could count
In just an afternoon
And my own years
Rattled off in seconds

In the vast pre-history
Of consciousness
This beauty unremarked

But do my remarks
Or those of others
Make the beauty so?

So I wonder
Is it my nature
To see the beauty

Or is it nature
Which made me
And the lichen

Beautiful

Or did nature, the narcissist
Make me to see her that way
So that nature’s beauty
Would no longer go
Unremarked