Sunburnt Australia, singing in the rain

Dom sent the poinsettia photo (below) under separate heading - hundred are blooming in their backyard now - but I think it goes well with his enthusiasm for the rain - they were facing brush fires not too long ago - and his comments on the Australians' life and perspective. We're used to the image of the sinewy, tough Australian, but there's much more to this image. He writes:

Yippeee! The weatherman gave Australia the best news in a hundred years -- el Nino has faded, and yes, the rains are returning. In such a poignant moment, only poetry can express what we feel:

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die --
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

Of course, I didn't write these graphic lines. They are by Dorothea Mackellar, a white poet who touched the essense of what we Australians feel when we see the expanse of this great land. Her poem is appropriately entitled "My Country."

(I have not so far come across any Aboriginal's poetry about what the country means to the indigenous people. I'm pretty sure there is such poetry, and I must track it down.)

The decendants of the first English settlers felt a yearning for England, but when they visited, they found their love for Australia was far greater. Here's how Dorothea captured the sentiment:

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens,
Is running in your veins.
Strong love of grey-blue distance,
Brown streams and soft, dim skies --
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror --
The wide brown land for me!

The expression "I love a sunburnt country" is indelibly embedded in Australian English. It captures the spirit of Australian defiance in the face of hostile nature. Our farmers and graziers are a tough, tough lot. I know the soft joy they are feeling as they see a little greenery appear in cracked fields.

Core of my heart, my country! Land of the Rainbow Gold, For flood and fire and famine, She pays us back three-fold. Over the thirsty paddocks, Watch, after many days, The filmy veil of greenness That thickens as we gaze . . .

Dorothea MacKellar died in 1968 and is buried at Waverley cemetery, which is located just south of Bondi Beach.

Posted by Greg Stone at July 5, 2003 04:34 AM