Francis Duggan Poems

They had lived in Australia for hundreds of centuries before white people came
And hunted and shot them to extinction which seems an awful shame
The thylacine Australia's largest marsupial of prey
All but lost to the memory it does seem sad to say
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Time on me is telling it becomes everyone's foe
But my past follows me to wherever i go
In my flights of fancy i hear the gray crow
Cawing on a beech tree where the rank rushes grow
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Tired of life's battle and feeling down
And tired of writing rhymes about Millstreet Town
Only of Nature i never feel tired
She is the one i have always admired
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Quite beautiful birds i have yet to see in the park of a town
the males with white throat, black cap, yellow unders and wings, back and tail of greyish brown
The quieter plain coloured females yellow unders and mostly bluish gray
They are birds i do know of but do not see every day
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A truism from the past that remains a truism today
Live and let live as the wise one did say
Where respect is due respect you should pay
And never harm anyone in any sort of a way
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In the ever green old countryside where Clara hill looks down
Today the birds are singing in the groves by Millstreet Town
The fields looking resplendent in their wildflowers of the Spring
Such joy to the beholder Nature's beauty does bring
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Time does go so quickly says the old fellow Dan
It does not seem that long ago since i was a young man
But i am more than five decades past my physical prime
And in human years this does seem a very long time
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Where everyone knows everyone it is that sort of town
Yet like everywhere not nice to live in for the financially down
Where if you have lots of money you enjoy local fame
But the one struggling on in life few wish to know by name
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The old fields i loved i may never more see
I only have memories of what used to be
I have long shed the last of my nostalgic tears
Since i have not been in Ireland for thirty two years
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A living hero or celebrity better than a dead one any day
But there is no inequality where dead people lay
The one who makes equal poverty, wealth and fame
The Reaper of lives treats all lives as the same
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