Francis Duggan Poems

Live every day as if it is your last day and one day you'll be right
As that is as sure as the day follows night
The poor they can laugh as well as dance and sing
And death is far greater than the queen or the king
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I know a woman and her name is Lillian
A dear kind soul she has a 'heart of gold'
She has three children one had schizophrenia
And he died young just twenty five years old.
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The cootamundra wattle the commonest of trees
They sucker all around the place and multiply like bees
In scrubland and steep gullies, in paddocks brown and bare
And in urban parks and gardens, you see them everywhere.
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To raise a wildborn animals from a baby is not an easy job
You need only ask Steve and Annie Durie they raised orphan wombat Bob
Found in his car victim mother's pouch by the highway hungry but still alive
A miracle of Nature her death he did survive.
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Don't talk to me of this life hereafter although of such you seem convinced you know
I feel we are like flowers of Spring and Summer we grow and we bloom and we go
Into the nothingness of nothing although we leave our seeds behind
Our lives only based on survival and the survival of our own kind.
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For baby Matilda Mitchell life's trials have started early
And one might say by lady luck she has not been treated fairly
But since her operation for her cleft palate she seems healthier and brighter
And on her mum and dad Gwen and Richard the burden of care lighter.
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Why worry of death and of dying when you will be forever dead
The present is all that does matter who knows for us what lay ahead
We will die that we know for certain and we only can live in the now
The father of time is our master and to the father of time we must bow
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Can one see hope for the future of humanity when the foes of Nature in business and commerce succeed
When our Earth Mother is being raped for her resources by those known for their financial greed
In South America's Amazon Rainforest thousands of acres of trees are cut down every day
The uncalled for destruction of the natural environment for agriculture for to make way
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The peals of the funeral bell echo to the calm sky
For someone today 'tis a final goodbye
And on some future date whenever that be
A similar bell will be ringing for me.
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A war about God and a war about Land
The tragic loss of lives I do not understand
A just war in truth is a damnable lie
For in modern day conflicts many civilians do die
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