Young Jim Poem by Francis Duggan

His restless spirit takes him to new places he feels happy to be on the road again
The currawongs are piping on the gum trees the large dark birds who sing before and during rain
Tomorrow he will be driving through New South Wales like migratory bird heading for his wintering ground
Driving far north out of the southern Winter for the warm tropics of north Queensland he is bound.

He is on the road and the wanderlust is in him driving north for the warmth of the northern Spring
The lust for wander in his young heart stirring and in the young heart wanderlust's a vibrant thing
And last month young Jim only turned twenty and in the big Country there's much to see
And he is bound for where the green figbird is singing in coastal parkland on a sunlit fig tree.

Some young men buy a home and fall in love and marry and work hard for love of wife and family
But young Jim is not that sort of a fellow of the ties that restrict others he feels free
He leaves behind him a young and pretty woman he was her hero and to him she was true
But he told her for him not to be waiting to go and find herself somebody new.

He will find another woman in North Queensland and when he moves on he too will leave her behind
For in the past few years he's had so many lovers and his next sexual partner for him won't be hard to find
He is young and care free and the World is his oyster and the lust for wander is alive in young Jim
And he is on the road bound for North Queensland and the bigger World out there is calling him.