Francis Duggan Home Poems

Her mum and dad brought her to Australia
When she was two years old in seventy two
And you'd never know she once came from Ireland
As she speak and act as all Queenslanders do.
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The place I once called home is no longer so to me
And a migrant in this Land is all I can be
But I am happy to live here and here I will stay
Until the Grim Reaper on my life has his say
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My daddy won't be coming home my daddy gone away
My daddy gone to other World that's what my mummy say
My daddy gone to better World to World beyond the sky
And now I know dad won't come home for mummy never lie.
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The swallows Winter far from Hibernia's shore
And far south of the high fields of old Claramore
But they will return to raise their next brood in the Spring
The wonders of Nature an amazing thing
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He never will go home again for time's not on his side
And he never more will see again the Atlantic at full tide
And watch again the rowing boats amongst the wild waves dance
From his sea side Village far north of here in Brittany in France.
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In the year 05 Joan and Joe will go to live in Inchaleigh in view of Clara hill
Close to the Finnow river and the Glasheen rill
Some distance from London where they have lived for some time
Their children young adults are now in their prime.
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Will the locals know him when they see him
And will they remember his name
Or will he feel a complete stranger
When he goes back to Kiskeam?
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She won't be going home for Christmas as she doesn't have a home to go to
And she is one of many and far too many who
Do not have a Homeland or a home to go to doesn't life seem so unfair
And thousands poverty stricken to every millionaire.
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A comfortable home to live in and enough to eat and drink is all anyone need
And having this said the unhappy billionaire is a poor one indeed
The happy go lucky their needs in life small
There is truth in the saying one cannot have it all
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Loneliness does not have a home it does live everywhere
And so many lonely people in the big World out there
The man living on his own in his seventies grieving for his recently deceased wife
He has got to know loneliness since it has entered his life
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He never does yearn for places far away
In his old hometown with his aging local wife he is growing old and gray
Their children and grandchildren to them live near
The love of home to them remains ever dear
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To the Londoner it is London to the Roman it is Rome
We all have a place to call home
The migrants from New York and Bombay
Will tell you their home from here is far away
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The Pride of Kanturk from home is far away
She lives by the Yarra in Melbourne today
Happy in her life and feeling quite well
At the weekend she dances and socializes at the Normandy Hotel
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I come from a place where brave young men for what they believed in died
That they were true to their beliefs of them cannot be denied
The stories of the bravery remain a sense of pride
Of the legendary heroes of my home countryside
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The Land where the famous stout Guinness is made
And that Imperialist Armies often did invade
And that has suffered in the political and religious divide
A problem that now seems to be Worldwide.
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Mt Eccles the home of koala and roo
Of wallaby, magpie and sulphur crested cockatoo
Where the shrike thrush whistle and the shy bronzewing coo
And the wooded gully echoes to the call of the weerloo
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I climbed the high ground up through Pomeroy's field
Beyond where grass to het and bracken yield
The birds piped in the wood at Claramore
And singing lark towards heaven's gate did soar.
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No matter where your wandering take you to
The memory forever stick like glue
Of the people and the places you once knew
They will live and they will die with you.
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Oh to be back home in Ireland now that April winds are blowing
And the weather getting milder and the green grass is a growing
And the breath of Spring is in the air and daylight hours grow long
And the skylark o'er the heather sings his merry April song.
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The sad music that is playing
Puts my lonely heart to straying
Far across the deep blue sea
Some faint voice is calling me.
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She will be home in Glasgow in Scotland far away
For the carving of the turkey with her family on Christmas Day
When the Parklands in her Hometown with frost are hoary gray
Nostalgia and wanderlust not that far apart they say.
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I am going home to Sherbrooke though the miles be long
To the hills of yellow robin and pied currawong,
I can see the narrow roadway as you travel down
From Gembrook to Cockatoo via Emerald and on to Belgrave Town.
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I remember in December it was cold and wet and gray
And I hope you keep the peat fire burning for to keep the chill away
From the lounge room and the bedroom you need warmth this time of year
Don't think I could live in Ireland I've got used of living here.
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He talks about his three young loves Amanda, Jane and Aggy
When he was young long years ago back home in old Wonthaggi
Till he grew tired of the old Town and its familiar faces
And his lust for wander stirred in him his yearning for distant places.
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My memory takes me back long years in time
To boyhood years long, long before my prime
When I was twelve years going on thirteen
But since so many leaves gone with the stream.
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He says he will go home again to Macroom
When wildflowers in the fields by Sullane are in bloom
And the hawthorns are cloaked in their white blooms of the May
Good old memories live on as the wise one does say
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I'd love to go home to Kallista it's beautiful there in the Spring
When crimson rosella is belling and little yellow robin sing
The magpie's voice herald the morning and grey shrike thrush sing all the day
I'd love to go back to Kallista to home of the great 'mountain gray'.
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To cypress tree the robin came to lilt and whistle daily
And Spring brought greeness to the fields back home near Ballydaly
And though winter months were harsh and long cool April brought the swallow
And cattle now were out on grass in all parts of Duhallow.
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We all have a town or a city or a place to call home
To some it is Paris or London or Rome
Or Moscow or Sydney, Dublin, Montreal or L A
To them remain home though from there they live far away
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You may have a new home and a brand new car
But leave it to others to say of how marvelous you are
For self praise is no praise as the wise one does say
But you are one who does not see it in this way
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Home is where your heart is only true to say
And home to you now from your first home in distance is far away
And in home to you now you hope for to stay
For as long as you live till your last night and day
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Tower Hill home to koala, emu, wallaby and gray kangaroo
And the big dark brown parrot known as yellow tailed black cockatoo
Where on cavities on the cliff face long billed corellas their young do raise
In a place with strong links to the Dreamtime of long by gone days
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It may be London, Paris or Rome
For all of us there is a place called home
It may be Beijiing, Rio or New York
For me 'tis a place called Millstreet County Cork.
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An artist or writer would love this sort of a place
Where Nature has the smile of peace on her face
Away from the traffic and noise of the street
On the verge of the wood where peace and beauty meet
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Each person has a place of birth referred to as Early Home
If not in the big Cities of the World Cities such as London, Beiijing, Rio, Delhi or Rome
And if not from a bigger city then from some village or some town
Where so many begin their journey to disappointment or renown.
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The singing birds of Millstreet are calling, calling me
In my dreams I hear them whistling far beyond the deep wide sea
The green, green wood by Clara hill is always on my mind
On the day that I left Millstreet I left my heart behind.
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A strong love of Claraghatlea he does retain
Michael Kelleher will go home to Millstreet again
And walk in the field that he loved as a boy
Old memories remain to him as a source of joy
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Home is where you live as some does say
And not where you once lived in distance far away
And though one's truth to others seldom does apply
The truth in the saying seems hard to deny
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Now the nesting birds are singing in the green woods far away
And above the bracken mountain skylark piping all the day
And the jackdaws are stick gathering in their cloaks of black and gray
And the hawthorns are resplendent in their white blossoms of the May.
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Oh I must go home again while the fields are richest green
And the trout for fly are leaping from the dark pools of the stream
And the linnet's singing gaily midst the shrouded cypress screen
That stands beside the cottage of my true love Kathleen.
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The place i once called home is no longer home to me
I only have memories of the what used to be
Like a robin in May singing on a leafy birch tree
Such beauty in time a fading memory
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Each person has somewhere for to call their first home
Like to the New Yorker it is New York to the Athenian it is Athens and to the Roman it is Rome
And no matter to where you travel to in the big World out there
You will always meet people from some other where
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We all have a place that we like to call home
To the Athenian it is Athens and to the Roman it is Rome
To the one born in Bombay his or her home Bombay
Though from their home city they may live far away
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With a young primary going son and daughter and a devoted wife
The stay at home fellow is content in his life
A family man content in his job one who loves his hometown
And one who never does yearn for worldly renown
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The gray shrike thrush he pipes on the black wattle tree
In the backyard of her little house by the sea
And four hundred metres from her front door
She can hear the big waves crashing on to the shore
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Some from their first home place do travel far
To big World cities where big buildings are
In overseas Lands from their first homes far away
In distance thousands of kilometers from where they first saw light of day
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Of the home of the badger and brown river trout
My journey in life it did take me far south
To the Land of koala and emu and roo
And rosella and kookaburra and cockatoo
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A valley that's locked in a volcanic rim
Tower Hill is the old home of the Budj Bim
As the first Australians of the Southern Land
Their culture far more respect ought to command
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I live far south of my first home in Duhallow Koroit in Victoria is now my hometown
In miles distant from Claraghatlea in view of Clara Mountain where i used to live when my hair was dark brown
From the fields of rook and jackdaw and badger and the predatory one known as the gray back crow
Where the Finnow from fields by Gneeves mountain to the Blackwater in Drishane does flow
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Your life journey may have begun in a place far away
But home is where you live now the house where you stay
Though the migrant Roman will tell you where he now lives is home
The home of his heart it will always be Rome
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