My Country

Source: Image from Japan Meteorological Agency satellite MTSAT-1R via Bureau of Meteorology

When I was 8 I had to learn "My Country" one of Australia's most well known and loved poems (written by Dorethea MacKellar over 100 years ago) to recite at my school Assembly to celebrate Australia Day. Now I can only remember the first few lines...like most Australians...

...
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
...

But today as I watch the news reports on the most recent and devastating weather reports of cyclone Yasi (seriously - check out the size of this thing - it looks like it is half the size of Australia!) approaching the far north Queensland coastline, I am reminded of more of Dorethea's pointed words.

...
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!
...

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 -
...
An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land -
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand -...

There are not too many Australian Summers that I can remember that we haven't had droughts or flooding rains or fire...
When I brought Amelie home from hospital almost 2 years ago now, all that was on TV was the reports of Black Saturday - the fires that raged through Victoria in February 2009 that resulted in Australia's highest ever loss of life from a bushfire.

Up until recently we have been considering and planning for alternative water supplies due to extended droughts and of course most recently we watched and will be recovering for some time from the effects of the devastating floods.

Australia is a country of extremes - extreme beauty, extreme weather but also extreme spirit...hang in there far north Queensland!