Our Flag, Pete Stratford

Our Flag

Some want to change our national flag and symbols it presents,

while others say, retain it, please, and what it represents.

For those who bravely died beneath those stars of Southern Cross,

they symbolise our proud, free land for which those lives were lost.

Indigenous say that this flag to them means genocide

and point out how their forebears beneath it also died.

Now such a complex issue is not easy to resolve, for

this flag we proudly fly aloft took years to evolve;

that Union Jack depicts the land from whence white settlers came,

those stars, the ones that we all know as Southern Cross by name.

As we’re now multi-cultural, what is it they suggest,

blend all the nations’ flags in one? That would create a mess.

Each national group would claim that theirs take pride of place,

while our Aborigines have claim, they were the primary race.

Should we follow the lies of Canada, with their maple leaf so bold?

Would a gum leaf, or big kangaroo, ever our pride hold?

Perhaps remove the Union Jack, and keep our stars of old;

but doesn’t that deny the way our history did unfold?

Why change this honoured flag at all that flies so proudly now?

Us migrants who have naturalised beneath this flag did vow

that we would give allegiance to this wide and wondrous land -

to keep our flag and honour it, yes, I would raise my hand.

© Pete Stratford 21.2.10