A Villanelle for 26 January 2018 (Poem)

I always do a bitter-ish villanelle for 26 January, reflecting on the ills of Australia. I started doing them in around 2012 from memory and I always post them.

You can see previous efforts here:
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017

This year's one is concerned mostly with my conviction that changing the date of Australia Day is the first and minimally decent thing this country could do to stop hiding from the reality that 26 January celebrates the beginning of indigenous dispossession and genocide, rather than anything to be actually proud about.

A Villanelle for 26 January 2018

A nation’s day that celebrates a start
of sorts: the first day of the end;
Blood on the ground, the country’s aching heart.

Denialism is its own dark art
Without owning, nothing here can mend;
A nation’s day that celebrates a start.

And rejection of all others is a part
of the same ill mind that never makes amend
Blood on the ground, the country’s aching heart.

Fireworks and sausages impart
a triumph, sickly-rooted, of whitewash trend;
A nation’s day that celebrates a start.

There might not even be a way to chart
a better way; but at least let’s not pretend.
Blood on the ground, the country’s aching heart.

The truth is stranger, deeper, and more tart
than the fairytales that old white men send.
A nation’s day that celebrates a start,
Blood on the ground, the country’s aching heart.