Old Joe From Macroom Poem by Francis Duggan

On those green banks in Summer wildflowers in their hosts bloom
Where the Sullane gently babbles through the old fields of Macroom
And pink breasted chaffinch singing on the leafy ash tree
Though his memories of the old home place not as fresh as they used to be.

As a boy with his father with their rods and lines they fished for trout
His excitement when he reeled in a big one and on the grass watched it flip about
At the sight of his achievement he laughed aloud in joy
In the heart of every migrant lives the memory of the boy.

Ten thousand miles north of here even as the crow might fly
Far from old river Sullane he is destined to die
Old Joe in his mid seventies the years have left him gray
And it surely can be said of him that he has known a better day.

To the old fields by the Sullane the Seasons come and go
where he once fished with his father the ageing grand-father Joe
And time it does not wait for anyone it ticks and ticks away
And the older that we get in years the shorter our life stay.