Eleven ships
Packed with men and women
Declared undesirable by George III
Relieved gaols of Great Britain and landed,
Two years after the Independence of the United States of America
On land that preceding sailors
Named New Holland and
Mapped as inhospitable.
Few decades were enough
To give yourself the necessary laws and
To build your harmonic community.
You got to know the shades of orange
Through those arid plains
On which the imprudent pays with his life,
And along with your unprecedented and voracious fauna,
Which in the midst of water scarcity
Found its way of life
It glows, Australia, your yellow horizon.
They pack your roads,
Parades of caravan trailers;
Devoted of the credo of picnics,
Your ingenuity flourishes, Outdoor Society,
On your gadgetry for the natural life.
The trill of multiple birds
Breaks the silence of your caravan parks
Crowded with early-rising children,
Yet in their pijamas, who pedal their bikes.
Inheritors of Shakespeare
Have not yet uncovered your Borges.
Borges, on his pages about Buddhism
Explained the satori
As the instant intuition when perceiving at once,
The answer to a riddle,
The punch line of a joke
Or the solution to a problem.
Been solved these three issues
Through your education,
You discovered, Australia, that enlightenment
In the surfer who rides the perfect wave.
Your well-rounded instruction system
Turns evident on the ability of your children
To plot pranks,
To understand sarcasm and
To leave aside bullying.
Friendly community of the fair go
You bring out the best of every citizen
and you make them shine.
You exert cosmopolitanism
Without the need of laws that demand it
And you build the most fertile land for freedom
Without yet having an Independence Day.
Translated by Franca & Luis Lafosse
