Francis Duggan Poems

She is in her early forties single and carefree
And few of her age are as happy as she
And though she has seen many places she says more yet to see
The one from the roadway to old Knocknagree.
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Though we go to the same pub and we drink the same brand of booze
I cannot judge him i don't live in his shoes
His life experiences are very different to mine
Though we drink the same beer and we both like red wine,
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In their cottage in Claraghatlea she lived with her only brother Dan
And she was way beyond mid life when i was a young man
Her name was Nora Sullivan one who was good and kind
And people of her type are rare and always hard to find.
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The rice fields of Southern Asia he never more will see
Or hear and see a blue winged java sparrow singing on a sunlit tree
Amongst his fellow migrants in Springvale his bones forever lay
So far from Indonesia so very far away,
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I respect them though the last post for them will not be played
And never in their honour will there be a parade
And yet their anthem for peace to my ears sounds so sweet
Those peace loving peace marchers who walk along the street.
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Life must be very sad for her so feeble, old and gray
From her bed helped to her wheelchair her life's hours tick away
A drive in the nursing home bus once a week with her elderly mates she does look forward to
She can only live for as long as she can but then that's all we all can do,
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The night was cold and frosty and the morning fields are gray
And the migrant redwing thrushes chirp on bare hedgerows far away
And the chaffinch he is silent on bare branch of alder tree
In flights of nostalgic fancy such things one does hear and see,
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In fancy i hear the male snipe in his courtship display
O'er the rushy fields on a calm night in May
With his tail as he flies he makes a goat like bleating sound
That echoes in the sky above his breeding ground,
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Life for me is a struggle and perhaps i am never more
To see the rocky outcrop of my far Homeland shore
Financially embarrassed and a stranger to renown
And perhaps i would even feel a stranger now in Millstreet my Hometown.
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The grey shrike thrush is whistling a bird i know so well
He sings around his borders as if he wish to tell
Or warn male birds of his kind this is my territory
This patch of ground not your patch is for my wife and me,
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