My Past Seems To Follow Poem by Francis Duggan

It has been awhile now since I lived in Duhallow
But where-ever I go to my past seems to follow
The streams and the rivers the trees and the bushes
The songs of the blackbirds and finches and thrushes.

The cawings of the rooks and the jackdaws and the magpie's loud chatter
Where on lush grass in Summer the cattle grow fatter
I last see the old fields on a cold morning in December
With frost they looked gray as I well do remember.

The cool winds of Autumn across the old fields blowing
And the Blackwater bank high through North Cork quickly flowing
Where ever the lust of the wander to take me
The past it does follow 'twill never forsake me.

The mountain hare who hides by day in the heather
The cock robin who sings in all sorts of weather
The rill from the hill it scurries down the gravel
Where-ever I go to the past with me travel.

The past is the past and it has gone forever
But our links to the past we never could sever
It has been twenty one years since I lived in Duhallow
But where ever I go to the past seems to follow.