December 1967 School Magazine

Brlsbane Glrls' Grammar School Magazlne

December, 196I

Brisbane Girls' Grammar School Magazine

December, t967

The bore went in March. It's then that we lost hope. "God! Just- for sorne rain!" Bur the dust. srill piled up b.lyint;[. dead, !h. bleached bones a stark reminder "f whri ,iltr ;il; could have been and was for a time. \7e escaped io fi;;. I still remember the -pleading expression of my doe. I nia to shoot him. He was dying, H. tell me to stay and srick ii out. I buried hiry by the gate, ,that cursed red dust surrounding him but he deserved something better than thar. Last timl I passed that way it was covered with grass and that west wind brought me back. I hope 'he' knows I'm still there. _ S.M., IVB tsEAUTY IN NATURE There is a difference between the dirt on a mountainside and the dirt that collects and stagnates in a slum gutter. One is ft.-*, clean, with that wild,' "*iitirrg earth-s..nti the other is polluted, a mixture of all the griity end-products of -ori, "civilization" , One is natural, and io, beautif"l; the other i; ""t. If there is beauty in such a low1y thing as a clod of mountain earth, what can one say of flowers, flames *a forests? Nature rivals Art as the most beautiful thing in the world. Fot many people , it is true, that to hear Shelley d-esmibe a J;;J, and to see one thernselves ate completely difiereni-!"p.riences. {ot tl..+, the poery surpasses its r,rbj..f in beauty, b,rr ihir it lh.tl fault, not the cloud'J. Nature has io be interpr.t.a io. i6.*; if they could see it clearly, first-hand, they *o,tld not think ;i afi as more beautiful than Nature . The beauty of nature has haunted and fascinated man from his eatliest times. fn IhS pre-Christrnas eras, he *otrliipp.A -fi: This ancient native faith lieJ dormant in some'people, is #uke in others. \(/ordsworth believed that every flower "injoys the afu i; breathes". Still others see natural beauty as an expt.rrion of God. It is the thought behind a waterfall that. catches the breath -r"d stops the heaft. a, Beauty has as many dlfferent facets as a drop of falling water, reflects as many_different lights, and often lives^jost ; T;;;: -B;: tween-a light and sailing whlte cloud and a dark rift of storm"cloud are differences far wider than, a-s scientists would hr". "r b.iior., the proportional concenuation of tiny water droplets. 1'he i;h;;; nature faith il rnan gives one a haimless and 'gay innoce;..; ;h; other a broodiqs, ominous grandeur - a bea,rti t" U. f.ur.J; b"; still worshipped.

Although there is such a diversity in the beauties of nature, there is a strange and universal unity as well , Scientists find this in laws which continue to crop up in apparently unconnected sub- jects; poets find it in similes and metaphors that haunt the reader as an equation can never do, for what Science ever cares for wild and random beauty? And so a tiny piece of rainbow can lose itself in the sea and become a coral fish, the night wind can be the ghost of a waterfall, the stars only pinpricks through which light shines from the f.at side of a gteat, dark canopy. There ate so many similarities, so many differences - Nature is like the perfect work of Art. The sky has its beauty, so have the low and peaceful plains. The sea, too, can move me with wonder its implacable green stillness on a summer morning, or at night, the white of the 'waves in revolt at the foot of the headland. But the most beautiful places I have ever seen ate in the mountains, up among the rainforests and the mists of the Lamington Plateau. There is sunlight there, it falls straight to the tree-tops, then shatters into glittering cadenzas that sparkle the leaves and dapple the ground. T'here is rnusic there; it rushes across the highest branches as a reckless wind, floats up from the slopes as a bell-bird's call, or sighs in the solitary drip of hidden creek water. If you are hemmed bv streaky, blurting windows into a little glass bottle of thought, breatr< them, exchange them for the life ,in a mountain creek, a flowing mist-essence, natural and beautiful. In appreciating the beauty of nature, one can go through three stages. In the first, nature is there only to be exploited let's pick the wildflowers, shoot the birds for their feathers, or stuff them with a glass button for an eye. Most people pass this stage, at least I hope they do, and come to love nature for beauty, wildness and tenderness, her colours, scents and sounds. Beyond this only a few reach. It is the feeling of there being not you, and nature, but you-and-nature, when you ate close enough to clouds to share your thoughts with them and when you know a mountain will never hurt you. It is this beauty in nature which I will most hate to leave , - LINDA GROOM, VIA SMALL MEMORY On rn5r first duy at Grammar, I made the mistake of wearing a watch. A prefect approached me within five minutes of my arcival and told rne in no uncertain terms, "You won't be able to wear that here".

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