Francis Duggan Poems

The pleasant fluting of the gray shrike thrush to it has a familiar ring
And the mating calls of the koalas can be heard in Mt Eccles in Spring
In the wilds of these volcanic mountains in the Dreamtime in the shade of the trees
The first Human Beings of Australia hunted and had their corroborees
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In rushy places by the Town of Millstreet the brown Finnow waters bank high do flow
When the redwings are back in the old fields and Clara wears his hat of snow
The trees stripped bare by the cold north winds that across Duhallow does blow
And the birds of song are not singing in grove and in windswept hedgerow.
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They stifle the grass and they stifle the flowers
The weeds that grow rank in the warm Spring showers
Reminds me of the war men who for war create their foe
They don't give the flower of peace a chance to grow
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With humanity it may be all is not okay
But I meet a good person or two every day
And though my dealings with a few have caused me to regret
A very bad person I cannot say I've met
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To so called patriots and pro war people and those to enlightenment blind
They are not to be trusted and are traitor kind
But they march for peace and I see that as great
And they are the people that I celebrate
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Two serious looking old ladies out walking arm in arm
They don't have happy faces they seem to lack in charm
They do seem quite judgemental the way they stare at me
My eyes can only tell me what my eyes believe I see.
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A double decker load of sheep were bleating as the small town the truck passed by
I thought to myself they must be uttering to me a help us cry
Their loud bleatings told of their stress of them a five hour drive ahead
Today is their last day of life tomorrow they will be dead
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If I should die tomorrow my praises none will sing
Though a few may say for everyone there is a final Spring
And he'll never more hear the shrike thrush sing in his cloak of brown and gray
Piping softly on the blackwood tree in the fading light of day.
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The unmistakeable voice of the blackbird his song is a song that I know
In Spring his kindred birds sing on the hedgerows in the fields where Finnow waters flow
By Millstreet Town to the Blackwater far north of here and far away
When I was younger and fitter and stronger the years have left me looking gray
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So many years I've known her yet so little of her know
Yet my love for her does not lessen it only seems to grow
Amazing Mother Nature her beauty everywhere
The Goddess of this Planet Earth none with her to compare
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