Belonging

Midweek Mélange

Sep 18, 2024

Welcome to the middle of the week!

As I was once again pondering current events here in the U.S., I considered the concept of what belonging means in regard to one’s country, as well as the idea of any country belonging to certain people or groups. The thought I wrote down was this:

You can belong to your country, but your country does not belong to you.

You have to share it with everyone else. With nature, with plants, with the soil and water and wildlife; with history, with your colonial past, with your shared oppression of others, with your own immigrant past—unless your ancestors were the oppressed, stolen from faraway lands and enslaved, or your heritage is indigenous—in which case, you already know that “it” does not “belong” to any of us.

“The earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth.” – Chief Seattle

While browsing poetry as I often do, I found this poem. It resonates deeply with me, to the extent I did not realize until I kept reading that the poet’s homeland was Australia. This stunning poem is an absolutely iconic piece of the soul of our Australian friends, but it is not well known here—and should be.

My Country

by Dorothea Mackellar, 1904

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!

A stark white ring-barked forest
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.

Isobel Marion Dorothea Mackellar was born on 1 July 1885, at her family’s home “Dunara” that stood on Point Piper, overlooking Rose Bay on Sydney Harbour.

The third of four children, Dorothea was the only daughter born to renowned physician and Parliamentarian, Sir Charles Kinnaird Mackellar and his wife, Marion (nee Buckland). The young Dorothea received private tutoring in painting, fencing and languages and later attended lectures at Sydney University, though she never formally enrolled as a student. Speaking French, German, Italian and Spanish fluently, Dorothea acted as interpreter when the family travelled overseas. Having lived a privileged and sheltered life, Dorothea’s first experience of painful reality was the death of her brother Keith in the Boer War.

The Mackellar family owned several properties in the Gunnedah area, including “Kurrumbede” and “The Rampadells”, approximately 25 km north west of the town bordering the Namoi River.

Totalling more than 2400 ha (6000 acres), these properties were purchased by Sir Charles in 1905. The family already owned a property called “Torryburn” near East Gresford in the Hunter Valley, where Dorothea spent time as a young girl. Sir Charles handed these properties over to his two remaining sons, Eric and Malcolm, who both became well respected and generous members of the Gunnedah community. Over the years Dorothea often visited the area, staying with her brothers and maintaining her horseriding skills.

She became responsible for her ageing parents, and consequently wrote very little after her father’s death in 1926. She had acquired “Tarrangaua”, a splendidly located retreat at Lovett Bay on Sydney’s Pittwater where she swam and read. Her mother died in 1933 and Dorothea divided her time mostly between “Cintra”, a house in Darling Point, and “Tarrangaua.”

Her brother Malcolm sold “Kurrumbede” in 1939 as there were no direct Mackellar descendents. The last 10 years of Dorothea’s life were spent in a Randwick nursing home in increasingly ill health. She outlived her younger brothers however, dying in her sleep on 14th January 1968. The funeral service was held at the historic St Mark’s Church at Darling Point, and her poem “Colour” was read at the service. According to her nurse, Adrienne Howley, Dorothea regarded this poem as her finest work. Her ashes were placed in the family vault at Waverley Cemetery in Sydney.

Biographical writeup by the Dorothea Mackellar Centre https://dorothea.com.au/

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