Meltdown #3: Social Dreaming
As the wrath of winter over Melbourne descends
Another lockdown sends us around the bend
Hotel seepage
Cluster leakage
The cacophony of COVID just never ends
Wollert man in quarantine interstate
Infected Melbourne through 10,000 contacts to date
Exposure sites galore
Stadiums, bars and stores
Three dozen known cases, but found too late
A 7-day, circuit breaker, state-wide lockout
Blamed the Fed Government for slow vaccine rollout
But with so much delay
The virus got away
This Indian variant could be a serious knock out
The infection was spreading at a much faster pace
Than the system was able to track and trace
With shoulders slumped
Our hearts have thumped
Annoyed that again, we’ve locked down the place
But our response should always be in proportion
It’s casual workers, small business that front the extortion
Down on their luck
A billion bucks
Need a balance between safety and the cost of the caution
We just can’t allow turkeys to enable
What’s served up to us on the Christmas table
Like hotel-based quarantine
And the slow pace of vaccine
To the vulnerable, aged care and the disabled
Just returned from the Land of the Long White Cloud
Where the climate is cleaner and Maoridom is proud
Had meetings to attend
Then family and friends
I made it home in time while the bubble still allowed
Meanwhile it’s the week of Indigenous Reconciliation
To respect the culture of First Peoples’ nations
Much wisdom to reap
Their blood runs deep
A call for real action and education
Aboriginals watched white conquest from every corner
Yet Terra Nullius was decreed the official order
Native and so black
How inhuman is that
They were regarded no better than flora and fauna
The most ancient sovereignty when white man arrived
For over sixty millennia they had survived
Resourceful aboriginals
Custodians original
Connected to climate and nature they’d thrived
The Uluru Statement from the Heart
A voice they should have had from the start
Enshrine in the constitution
Embrace their contribution
To close the gap that keeps us apart
But the Australian dream will never be cast
Without accepting the truth and errors of our past
We will never belong
If we don’t right the wrong
If our beds are burning, our dream won’t last
I dream for the day when ordinary people
Every race and creed are treated as equal
Every nation and colour
Every Woman and Fulla
All humankind, same evolutionary sequel
Wherever you grew up, whether black or white
Wherever you are born, you have special rights
It’s where you belong
It’s your own dream song
The spirits of our ancestors hold us tight
So in lockdown, we’ve plenty of time to ponder
The climate and land on which we wander
Dare to dream
Post COVID-19
The good from the crisis that we must not squander
Kevin Holmes • 30th May 2021
