WHOSE COUNTRY?

The blood of rent and profits

Scraped from ochre slopes and plains,

Of proceeds of a violent past,

Is clotting in your veins.

You love wind tunnels built

By swindlers, bricked and paved.

I can never ever love that place,

For I’m a serf, a simple slave.

You love a brutal country,

A land of legal claims,

Where kids can’t trust strangers,

Syringes and meth pipes block the drains.

You love a land of oligopolies,

Where necessities’ prices gouge us.

And age pensioners are invisible,

Until they can’t pay credit charges.

But I love a country that’s home to heaven’s blessings,

Harvests, pastures, cane fields, nature’s jewels,

This love I share with all those who came here before me,

To a haven for the poor in a cove that brooked no fools.

And I love our beaches and our little hills,

The subtle mysteries of the outback,

Dreamtime wisdom, cloud-kissed blue skies,

Scarlet sunsets, and, amidst the stars, the black.

And, yet, I know, I love a lost vision –

An idea, a quest, perhaps a mirage, mislaid.

But every day I glimpse what might have been,

And I wander in glories that refuse to fade.

Acknowledgement: my heartfelt gratitude and, also, apologies to Dorothea Mackellar