We Can Only Visualize Poem by Francis Duggan

We can only visualize what used to be
The things again we never more may see
Though in flights of fancy i can see again
Old Clara half cloaked in the fogs of rain

It is true the savage loves his native shore
In my memory's eye above high Claramore
The dark winged swallows chirping as they fly
And the skylark singing in the sunny sky

The robin singing on the alder tree
In Claraghatlea that once was home to me
When i was younger and in my life's prime
Going back just over three decades in time

Perhaps i'll never again hear a cow
Lowing in a field by the River Finnow
On a Summer evening as the sun goes down
In the quiet countryside just west of Millstreet Town

An old voice that remains as ever young
The mountain rill born with the ceaseless tongue
By ditch and hedgerow every night and day
On to the river babbling on it's way

To memory we are slaves as some do say
And the biological clock as ever ticks away
The now is all that matter since the past has gone
And all around us life it does go on.