Under the Shade of a Coolibah Tree

"Once a jolly swagman sat beside the billabong,
Under the shade of a coolibah tree,
And he sang as he sat and waited by the billabong
You'll come a waltzing matilda with me"
Waltzing Matilda

Through Twitter and Plurk, I've become acquainted with a number of educators from the Land Down Under.

I can roughly estimate the time of day there, and have a working knowledge of Australian seasons, weather, and school calendars.

One of the Celtic tunes my husband and I listen to, Back Home in Derry, begins:

In 1803 we sailed out to sea
Out from the sweet town of Derry
For Australia bound if we didn't all drown
And the marks of our fetters we carried
In rusty iron chains we sighed for our wains
Our good women we left in sorrow
As the mainsails unfurled, our curses we hurled
On the English, and thoughts of tomorrow

and ends:

Van Diemen's land is a hell for a man
To live out his whole life in slavery
Where the climate is raw and the gun makes the law

Neither wind nor rain care for bravery
Twenty years have gone by, I've ended my bond
My comrades ghosts walk behind me
A rebel I came - I'm still the same
On the cold winters night you will find me...

Oh..... I wish I was back home in Derry
Oh..... I wish I was back home in Derry

It's a common perception in the U.S. that Australia was exclusively a penal colony, a wild and barren place of exile and punishment. We often fail to take into account the large numbers of others who chose to settle there: those in search of adventure, fortune, refuge or freedom.

To my online friends Jo, Sue, Judy, Amanda, Dean, Jenny, Anne, Sue and to all those who live in Oz, I send my wishes for a joyful Australia Day in your beautiful homeland.

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 drought and flooding rains.

I love her far horizons,

I love her jewel-sea,

Her beauty and her terror

The wide brown land for me!

The stark white ring-barked forests,

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. -Dorothea Mackellar, My Country

"Australia Day BBQ sur la Cotter - 13" by Pascal Vuylsteker