News in Revue – Week 12
Caitlin Still writes a poem about the exodus of Tony and the Burning Bush
So Tony thought, ‘I will go over
and see this strange sight –
why the bush burns up.’
When the LORD saw that he
had gone over to look, God
called to him from within the bush
‘Tony! Tony!’ And Tony said,
‘Here I am.’ The Lord said
‘I have indeed seen the misery
of my people in the mountains.
I have heard them crying out
because of the carbon tax.
I am sending you to the mountains
to bring my people the mountain-dwellers
into safe Liberal seats. And this
will be the sign to you
that it is I who have sent you:
When you have spoken
of strange weather, you will continue
to deny climate change
on this mountain.’ Tony
said to God, ‘Suppose they ask me
why all the flames? Then what shall I
tell them?’ God said to Tony
‘I AM WHO I AM.’ This
is what you are to say
to the Australian public, ‘I AM
has sent me to you
to save you from the carbon tax.
(yet when Tony said, I AM WHO
I AM, Shorten, unconvinced said,
“Mean you, Tony, yourself or myself
or let’s not bring politics or religion
into this, thou upstart poet of
Honi Soit.”) The LORD said, ‘The elders
of Australia will listen to you.
Say to them, “Let me take
a three-day journey into the wilderness,
and proclaim from the mount
that climate change is crap.”’ So you will
shrug your shoulders at the wonders
I will perform on your land
and so you will wonder at the
scorching summer, and so your people
will plunder the desert.’