When those 12 ships turned up in Sydney, all those years ago, it wasn’t a particularly flash day for the people on those vessels either…
Prime Minister Scott Morrison
It was not a flash day at Sydney Cove,
not a flash day for anyone.
Not flash for the sailors, turning about
for a week in that blasting Southern sun,
not flash for the prisoners with their lives on board,
not flash for the crew with their rotten gums,
nor for the ones who watched as the ships
docked with their goods and their crime and their guns,
not flash for the gospel the chaplains stowed
in well-intentioned suitcases,
not flash for the enlightened human race
with its scurvy tongues and pock-marked faces.
Neither was it a flash in the pan,
a single raising of the flag,
a peaceful changing of the guards,
followed up with rum and gags,
but day by day my white kin reap
the fruits of that unflashy day
and all the good that came from it
is only God's tenacious grace,
and history has its many tales
where villains have no wicked laughs
and sometimes they can sound like us
and bring us gifts in their subtle crafts,
but human ears are big enough
to hear more stories than our own
and hearts have room for other hearts
if we can step off history's throne.
The Consolations of Writing 