Compiled by Kate Shayler, author of The Long Way Home and A Tuesday Thing
Nominated in 2012 for a Global eBook Award, The Prime Minister's Literary Award and the Colin Roderick Prize, among others, Burnished: Burnside Life Stories brings us stories of hope, clarity and understanding of the resilience of the human spirit from a range of Forgotten Australians who spent their formative years at Burnside Children's Homes.
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New Xin Zhang
Graham Sparks
Bathurst, NSW
Xin Zhangs old and new
are similar in many
ways
as I shall now expound,
for one, both vast and
ancient lands
do bask beneath a
baking sun,
and deserts broad and
lonely
do spread beneath
eternal blue.
Both lands are peopled
with a myriad species
of that funny little
biped,
and both do
harbour herds of camels,
although Old Xin Zhang
favours bactrians
where ‘New’ prefers the
drom’.
Both Old and New are
suffering alike,
afflicted by a foreign
hunger,
but here the two
diverge you see,
for Xin Zhang Old is
putting up a fight,
where Xin Zhang new,
directed from the House
at Canberra,
does acquiesce without
a whimper.
The Australian Government allows foreign
corporations and powers to do anything they want here, without asking the
Australian people by way of referendum. As China is particularly powerful,
China’s machinations loom large in Australia, and therefore is a big target for
my disdain, equal to my disdain for our politicians, or should I call them ‘comparadores’?
At least the people of Xin Zhang act upon their disdain, unlike Australian
people who merely shrug and watch football.
Graham Sparks
Location
I concur... well written and thought provoking.
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