It Has Been More Than 21 Years Poem by Francis Duggan

It has been more than 21 years since I lived in Millstreet that does seem a long time ago
Back there now I might feel a stranger and not many there that I might know
Those I went to school with are ageing and their children would seem strangers to me
The craggy old brown face of Clara perhaps I will never more see
Yet often in my flights of fancy I hear the dipper in the rill
That babbles it's way to the river from it's birthplace the field by the hill
It was back there in green old Duhallow that I lived my youth and my prime
It was there I fell in love with Nature and became addicted to rhyme
I was a young man of the sixties the years have left me looking gray
And like the millions of other baby boomers I have known a far better day
The lust of the wander was in me in Claraghatlea I did not stay
Yet I often think of the old fields and family and friends far away
'Tis Spring now in green old Duhallow the birds sing in grove and on hedgerow
Where the Cails joins the Finnow near Liscreagh and on to the Blackwater flow.