her beauty and her terror

I haven't done anything at home for the last 4 days. I've just been following the news on the fires. It's times like these I feel I should be back in Australia. I feel so terribly for the people who have lost loved ones and property. My thoughts are with you all.

I collected together some photos images of the bushfires in Victoria and NSW. They are all over the Net but I wanted to put them in one place, because I'll never find them later.

My friend L, who just flew back to Victoria for the spring break is ok. I rang her this morning and she said the fires stopped about 15 km north of her.

It's all been emotionally devastating and I keep tearing up.

ETA: Anyone wanting to make a donation I think The Australian Red Cross's Victorian Bushfires Appeal is probably the best place, if you have a credit card and can afford it. Also, the forms are internationally friendly.

Another alternative is The Lord Mayor's Charitable Foundation Bushfire Appeal 2009, which will go to a range of charities helping the victims directly on site.

And for any touched by the plight of the animals there's Wildlife Victoria. Thanks to ancientcitadel for the link.



( her beauty and her terror )

My homing thoughts do fly!

I've noticed some poetry posts of late and what with the fires in Australia, this one was brought to mind. It's not the most sophisticated structurally speaking, but I still love it for how it speaks to me and mirrors what I feel about Australia. *sniffles*

My Country
© 1904 Dorothea MacKellar

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!

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.

Thanks to ancientcitadel for the link! *hugs*

Leonard Cohen ~ Bushfire Aid

Last entry for the night ... I promise!

Paul Kelly and the Michael Gudinski-led Frontier Touring Company have joined forces with Leonard Cohen and AEGLive UK to donate $200,000 to victims of the Victorian bushfires.

What a dear, dear man! And of course Paul Kelly and the tour company! Apparently, he gave some message to that effect that his thoughts were with the victims, at the concert in Melbourne tonight.

I was so jealous of my Mum - she saw him in Brisbane last week! And I'm the one who turned her on to him!