Australia: An Untamed And Restless Lover

As I watch from my safe and comparatively dry state at the horror that is rising in Queensland, I send silent prayers to those who have been effected and for the safe return of those 51 people who are still missing. I shake my head and wonder, how can one state burn while another is submerged? I am constantly amazed and shocked at the diversity and ferociousness that is Australia's landscape.

In Australia, if we're not burning, we're flooding, yet to find the happy medium of just right. It seems Australia is a violent lover, prone to fits of rage and drama and forever unsettled. Below is an iconic poem by Dorothea Mackellar, written in 1907 when she was in England and homesick for Australia. The poem has been mentioned a lot in the last few days and I think it sums Australia up beautifully.

When accusations and questions fly of who was at fault, let us remember: although this is tragic and reports suggest it will take two years for the state to recover, floods and bushfires are a natural part of Australia and have always happened, and will happen again, as sad as that is.  As Australian's we must be mindful of this and just do our best to support and help those effected. Read the poem and please  leave me your thoughts on the poem and if you think the floods could have been prevented.
 
           My Country

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!

A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.

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.

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 greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land -
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand -
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

By Dorothea Mackellar