Christmas in Australia

When I look at the news lately, the color’s always red
Another neighborhood burned down, another firefighter dead
Out of control is the phrase you hear the most
Flames spreading from coast to coast
New records breaking every week
The reporters run out of words to speak
To try to describe the disconnect
Between what is booming and what is wrecked
Between expanding efforts to extract
That which scientifically established fact
Says must stay there, beneath the ground
If we want to have a future with us around
They talk as if there’s time to wait
These leaders of this captured state
So if there’s hope, what lies in store
Is a rising like in ’54

Australia is a big land with many different stories
From the stolen generations to the refugees
But the story now, it seems, is the country’s on fire
Existential, down to the wire
Kinda like it was way back in the day
When there was no other way
When the status quo could exist no more
Like back in 1854

Such as Carboni, from the Italian shores
Veteran of a Civil War
Who saw the situation and took it on
Refusing to be a colonial pawn
Refusing to be ruled by the business pursuits
When the redcoats came in in their marching boots
Yes, people were killed then, by the score
In the rising of ’54

But then what came next, a show of hands
The great powers gave in to all the diggers’ demands
That’s how it goes when folks take sides
When they refuse, together, to provide
The taxes needed to maintain control
Over those who toiled and died on the land they stole
They exposed the corrupt and rotten core
Back in 1854

I hear of the rallies, of the incredulous press
As the PM takes a holiday in the US
While smoke alarms blare all over Sydney
From bush fires approaching just outside the city
I hope soon I might get to visit again
If there are towns left standing to visit by then
But in my dreams I’ll be be singing from the parliament floor
After a rising like ’54