Page 20 - eMuse Vol.9 No.01_Classical

THE FLAG

IN WHICH

WE TRUST

There’s a bland and brittle whimper and it seeps from caustic snouts,
By their dorsalled fleets at anchor ‘round their dour and covert touts.
And its mission seeks adjustments with a loud intemperate lust,
To the ensign of our nation - “The Flag in Which We Trust.”
“KEEP KIDS ALIVE … They’ll knock our sun bronzed sentry and their muddied feet
they’ll drag,
DO THE FIVE” Across the starry cipher of our great Australian flag.
They would try to cull her colours, her symbols and her bars,
Her history steeped in mateship and her everlasting stars.

Our island nation’s circled by great oceans pounding free, As for bonded links with Britain mate, most cut them long ago,
Our abiding love of nation seems as natural as the sea. When her Generals fed Australians to the threeo (.303) and the crow,
We live by lakes and rivers, by billabong and stream, When she kept us as a prison; took our cedar, sheep and gold,
Why ... Blue’s the swag for the mighty rag of our Great Australian When she joined the Common Market and she left us in the cold.
Dream.
We endured and forged forgiveness, claimed the “Ashes” of her wicket,
We swim for form and fitness, we swim for relaxation, Taught her rugby, proper riding and the rudiments of cricket.
For therapeutic purpose and for sport and love of nation. And we love old London’s lamplights and her verdant village green,
We swim for tone and texture and to put time on to hold, Find it hard to like her litter - but we mostly like the Queen.
And when rings and flames call forth our names, it’s then we swim Our banner isn’t British and, in essence, never was.
for gold.
She’s the mighty national symbol of the land we love, called “Oz”.
We pipe our precious water to keep it by our side, She has danced with Aussie daughters and she’s died with Aussie sons,
But in its bland and grand impoundments, our Aussie kids have died. Entrenched on high at ANZAC, and when Bradman cracked the runs.
They sparkle ‘round our country like bright eyed emerald jewels, We took the star of Nationhood - we soldiered on alone.
But tiny crosses track the losses, by the lanes of backyard pools.
With tears and sweat we built her and we built her on our own.
CHORUS And before crude comments clutter up the gutters of disgust,
Keep kids alive... do the five... mime the rhyme to survive, Plot the metre of this country ‘neath ‘The Flag in Which We Trust.”
Fence the pool... shut the gate... teach the kids to swim... it’s great!
Supervise... (“watch your mate”) and learn how to resuscitate. We’re the blackman and his Dreaming - been here fifty thousand years -
Overlanders, fought in Flanders, Snowy Mountain engineers;
Just focus for a moment on whom that lost child could have been, Boundary riders, rank outsiders, railway fettlers on the bridge;
A “Bradman”, a “Fred Hollows” ...... a country western queen. We’re the bony crust of miners gouging opal on the Ridge.
A mother of a tribe of kids, with “Kieren” in their eyes,
The father of a daughter who’d have claimed the Nobel Prize. We have built a mighty nation - where they sent us down to die -
Blitzed the birth of aviation; christened “QANTAS” for the sky.
Keep kids alive... do the five... mime the rhyme to survive, We have boiled a billion billies laying rails of sculptured steel,
Fence the pool... shut the gate... teach the kids to swim... it’s great! And in ‘83 you joined with me to steer the Lexcen keel.
Supervise... (“watch your mate”) and learn how to resuscitate.
Australian eyes have mapped the skies - the dark iron blue of space.
Every one is precious; one death a week is one too many, Our science, art and medicine now enhance the human race.
In that seven days a further six are maimed for life....Is anybody But fortunes sway - you’ve lost your way - your ideas turn to rust.
listening? Court the star encrusted pointers on “The Flag in Which We Trust.”
Hear this mantra! Summer’s running.
“Keep kids alive... Do the five... “ like an anthem should be drumming. We have meshed this living country with vast macadam strips;
Keep kids alive... do the five... mime the rhyme to survive, Loaded cattle, coal and copper into fleets of tethered ships;
Fence the pool... shut the gate... teach the kids to swim... it’s great! Built power lines, forged branding irons, we’ve fought the world’s
great wars.
Supervise... (“watch your mate”) and learn how to resuscitate.
Our drill bits sink for lead and zinc, by graves of the dinosaurs.
So don’t ignore this festered core and its stunted reverie.
Just re-engage the national rage that set the Franklin free.
And when Lawson’s lost his metre and when ANZAC’s lost its thrust,
Hint of minor alterations to “The Flag in Which We Trust”.
www.robertraftery.com
Footnote:
The “Do the Five” campaigne has saved countless Australian lives
simply by teaching kids to swim and making those who supervise
them more savvy about emergency procedures.
Wally

20 eMuse January 2020