Bee-eater's Rush

In Lightning Ridge, in northern New South Wales,
where nature paints the scene in vivid hues,
and opals flash their reds and blacks and blues,
it seems, when you compare it, all else pales…
for what can stand against that opal fire?
What landscape, set beside the Ridge's fields
can hold the viewer's eye? Such beauty wields
great power – living with it one could tire
of loveliness – and yet, each summer when
the rainbow birds return, their brilliant splash
of gold and blue and green will bring a flash
of joy to Jenny and hers sons again.

Why do the birds return? Because, perhaps,
it says "Bee-eater's Rush" on mining maps!

Written for Jenny Molyneux and family, of Lightning Ridge, who thought the Rainbow Bee-eaters so lovely and memorable, that they named an area of their mining lease for them. That name has now been formally accepted, and appears on maps of the area.