CHAMELEON

Oh Chameleon, basking on the rock,

your skin the same hue as the surface you sit on

in the sun that dapples light on you in your blissful heat bath.

I too can change my colours blending into the background,

when in an alien environment

I do not have the attitude of most of my friends.

“It’s not like this where I come from”

I can't change accordingly

I blend and change myself and become like those around me.

I wear simple elegant clothes in Paris

I feign boredom in London

I observe and move and sit in accordance

Oh chameleon you turn and stick your tongue out for a fly

As the sun dims you move

stealthily to the shadows and change

into dark browns and greys.

I cannot see you but I know you are there.

Others do not notice me

but I know I am here, waiting until

chameleon like no more I can be

myself unique and serene.

But chameleon you do not have to think about how to disappear

Nature has given you this gift. Your colours change miraculously –

an unconscious reflex just as I breathe air.

I just wish I could be part of the crowd that

No one notices until I am ready to make contact.

I do not to try and make an artificial environment around me to pretend am still in England.

I want to be chatting and joking and making mistakes and laughing about them;

enjoying making fun of new things.

Who am I but a chameleon enjoying my camouflage in my group of teenagers watching how they

tease and take the rough with the smooth?

I can just meditate as part of nature

but what camouflage do I need to be part of a crowd?

Well I am not a chameleon I realise. I do not want to clamour to be like everyone, I want the freedom to have my own ideas and express my own feelings So chameleon I am not like you but I sit on this rock drowsily in the sun wanting to be like you and just imagining that I am too a rock, part of this earth for hundreds of years