I’m not one usually given to expressions of patriotism, but Australia day (among other things) got me to thinking. Also, the intense heat of the last few days, the drought, fires and floods reminded me of this poem.
I was originally going to title this “Why I don’t want to be American” after a nasty experience where someone tried to convince me that I deep down really wanted to be American, and that being Australian was some how lesser. But it’s not that. I have no objections to being American, but I gave my heart away a long time ago…
(The poem is Dorothea McKellar’s “My Country” written in 1904*)
*I love a sunburnt country
A land of sweeping plains
Of ragged mountain ranges
Of droughts and flooding rains *
Right now in this country, much of the east is gripped in the worst drought for over a century. The bush is tinder dry. Huge stretches are burning. Lawns, usually brown tinged at this time of year, are dead. Water storages are at an all time low. Meanwhile, in Western Australia’s Pilbara region, roads are closed due to flooding. And my heart breaks for her.
I love her far horizons
I love her jewel sea
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me
I have driven hours over flat open country, and never seen another living soul. I have stood on 90 mile beach in eastern Victoria, and looked east and west, and seen empty white sandy beaches stretching as far as the eye can sea, with not one other person on it.
The stark white of ringbarked forests
All tragic to the moon
The saphire misted mountains
The hot gold hush of noon
On the hottest of days, the light changes. Stillness, that cannot be described descends. It is as if the entire country is too hot to move. There is a certain smell in the air that I cannot describe.
Green tangle of the brushes
Where lithe lianas coil
And orchids deck the treetops
And ferns the warm dark soil
The contrast is amazing. From firey red deserts, to tropical rainforests. From snowy mountain country, to open grazing land. From roaring ocean beaches to thick eucalypt bushland. It can be so green in places, breath takingly beautiful.
*Core of my heart my country!
Her pitless blue sky,
When sick at heart around us
We see the cattle die - *
I have seen earth so dry, that the rain runs off the surface, and doesn’t even soak in. Just this weekend past, the mercury soared to 44 degrees celcius (~111 F). Days when any cloud, no matter how small would bring welcome relief. Over the past year, countless farmers have sent stock off to be slaughtered, because the paddocks yield no grass for them to feed, and the dams are dry. Not just excess stock, but breading stock as well.
But then the grey clouds gather
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army
The steady soaking rain
Have you ever smelled the smell of the first rain in 5 years? There is a sweetness to it that no words can describe. To see old men, dancing in the rain, youth miraculously restored for a moment. The rain falls so heavily that you can’t see your hand in front of you, water pours from the sky in sheets.
Core of my heart my country!
Land of the rainbow gold
For flood and fire and famine
She pays us back threefold
Over the thirsty paddocks
Watch after many days;
The filmy veil of greeness
That thickens as we gaze…
When the rains do come, the land awakens overnight. Flowers bloom in the desert. The grass comes back to life. The fires that sweep across this country every summer, leave in their trail blackened stumps, but also renewed seeds.
An opal hearted country
A willful, lavish land,
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand
Though earth holds many splendors,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.
I cannot describe it. I think I posted in another thread a while back, that this country gets you every time. She knocks you flat and then kicks you when you’re down. We were already experiencing some of the worst droughts in over a century, and now we’re facing the worst fire season in just as long. Lives have been lost. Homes have been lost. Farmers are having to shoot their stock. All over this brown land, hearts are breaking. But we choose to live here. We choose to live near the bush, knowing the threats of fire. We love this country. She gets you every time.
Australians, we’re a tough bunch. One of the only nations in the world to have been formed, not out of war, but by a peaceful act of parliament. As a nation, we’re barely 100 years old. Yet we stand up, and we’re counted. We have fought in every major conflict in the past 100 years, for the most part, not because it affected us, because they didn’t, but because our mates needed our help. The spirit of ANZAC is alive and well. We are a peace loving nation. We are a fun loving nation. We don’t give up, and we don’t give in. We love our land, and we bounce back.
And we’ll bounce back from this. We will rebuild after these fires. We will sit out this drought.
We’re immensely proud of who we are and what we have achieved. We are inventors, if we hit a problem we can’t solve, we find a way around it, and more often than not, that way happens to be useful to other nations too.
We stand by our mates too. Even the ones we don’t know. We will risk everything, to help out a mate. Not for money, not for glory. Just because we’re good blokes. And there is no higher compliment, than calling someone a good bloke (even if she’s a shiela)
And that’s why I love this land. She breaks my heart, she really does. She’s kicked me in the guts more than once. But she’s made me tough. And I really do love this sunburnt country. I can’t explain it any better than that. I just love her.
*I believe that copyright has expired (50 years under Australian Law) If this is still a problem mods, please remove.
Maybe I’m missing something here. It was probably before my time or something, cos I have no idea what that reference is.