COPYRIGHT All rights reserved by the Dorothea Mackellar Memorial Society Inc. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the above Society. The Society presents these poems in the belief that each is the work of the submitting student. Teachers of the award-winning students have verified the authenticity of the poems. In some instances extensive searches have been made to check originality. Project Officer The Dorothea Mackellar Memorial Society Inc PO Box 113 GUNNEDAH NSW 2380 Phone: 02 67 421200 Email:
[email protected] Website: www.dorothea.com.au 2012 DMPA Anthology 2 The love of field and coppice, Core of my heart, my country! Of green and shaded lanes, Her pitiless blue sky, Of ordered woods and gardens When sick at heart, around us, Is running in your veins. We see the cattle die – Strong love of grey-blue distance, But then the grey clouds gather, Brown streams and soft, dim skies – And we can bless again I know but cannot share it, The drumming of an army, My love is otherwise. The steady, soaking rain. I love a sunburnt country, Core of my heart, my country! A land of sweeping plains, Land of the Rainbow Gold, Of ragged mountain ranges, For flood and fire and famine, Of droughts and flooding rains. She pays us back three-fold. I love her far horizons, Over the thirsty paddocks I love her jewel-sea, Watch, after many days, Her beauty and her terror – The filmy veil of greenness The wide brown land for me! That thickens as we gaze… The stark white ring-barked forests, An opal-hearted country, All tragic to the moon, A wilful, lavish land – The sapphire-misted mountains, All you who have not loved her, The hot gold hush of noon.