Francis Duggan Memory Poems

In memory i never left west of Millstreet
And the green rushy fields where the waterways meet
And in fancy i often does hear the birds sing
In a leafy grove in the prime of the Spring
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In Killorglin Town at old Puck Fair she sat on her pinto pony
With wavy brown shoulder length hair i recall her name was Joaney
A member of the travelling clan she looked so fit and active
In her early twenties at the most so young and so attractive.
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Her mum wept aloud on her birth bed she still does remember that day
At the birth of June her youngest sister now in her mid forties and turning gray
At that time Anna in her sixth year was too young to understand why
Her mother seemed so very unhappy at what should have been her moment of joy.
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To me a walk on memory lane can be a thing of joy
To visit my uncle Dan and aunty Mary in their home in Lisnaboy
I could call there at anytime and a welcome i would find
The past it seems to stay with us in the memory of the mind,
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She was quite young not even in her twenties
And i was two years younger seventeen
And i loved her but the thought of love it scared me
For to the ways of love i was still green.
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A stroll along old memory lane is a thing I do enjoy
And I can hear the songbirds sing in the groves of Lisnaboy
And white butterflies are flitting midst the wildflowers of July
And above the rushy meadow the lark carolling in the sky
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Mental pictures of things of Nature through life one recall
I once found a bird's nest in ivy growing on stone wall
The nest of a robin and his faithful wife
A memory to carry and to cherish for life.
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Memory to us most important in truth it can be said
Without this great gift we would be of the living dead
Without a past or a present and a blank future ahead
Even the thought of memory lost is a thought of dread
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Though the past just a memory of the forever gone
Life all around me as usual goes on
Yet in my flights of fancy i often times does hear and see
In Spring a male chaffinch singing on a leafy birch tree
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It is not a nice memory with others to share
The painful loud shrieks uttered by a dying hare
Under a starry sky in the faint moonlight
In the mouth of a fox in the dead of the night
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I've been a student of Mother Nature but for how long I cannot say
Ever since I've been a young boy in a Country far away
From this great Southern Land of Australia about Nature I got to know
In North Cork in Duhallow where the great Blackwater flow
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In my flights of fancy I often do hear
The male snipe o'er the bog in the Spring of the year
With his whirring wings he makes a drumming sound
As in the night sky he flies around and around
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In a Finnow river pool from here far away
I recall watching dark otters as they fished for prey
In the clear sunlit deep waters they splashed and swam about
As they chased their quick quarry the elusive brown trout
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The old Finnow river in flood waters of brown
Is bank high in the fields just west of Millstreet Town
And water is gurgling in the roadside drain
And the blackbird he sings in the wind and the rain
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In my memory it remains as the Millstreet I did know
The Millstreet I lived in decades ago
But in Millstreet the changes keep happening that's life as some do say
And perhaps I would feel a stranger in the old Hometown today.
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When his dog Strider he did have put down it was such a sad day for Paul
Faithful till the end he was such a good mate and till his own end he'll recall
The fawn bull terrier cross staffy his friend for many years but every thing comes to an end
Though the love of one's dog is an unconditional love your dog surely is your best friend.
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I've always thought that Gaelic Football was a grand and a sporting game
But after witnessing a match between Rockchapel and Kiskeam
Played in the Gaelic Playing Field half a mile from Knocknagree
The uglier side of Gaelic Football was all brought home to me.
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The lapwings gather in flocks in the Winter in fields gray with frost in the coldest time of year
And though it's been a while now since I've seen them their peewit calls I fancy I can hear
They always flew south in the colder weather when northern fields wore thick blanket of snow
In February and March I often see them when I lived north of here long years ago.
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The past in the real sense in the forever gone
But in the memory of your mind it is living on
Your life's good and bad memories with you do stay
And will be with you till your last night and day
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As long as the gift of memory we retain
Old memories from long gone years with us remain
Of the old friends we have not seen for many a day
In anti ageing creams and hair dyes some of them cover their gray
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The elvers in the clear pool of the old Glasheen rill
How often I watched them from the little bridge near the Town by Clara hill
The rill that marks the border between Inchaleigh and Claraghatlea on the roadway to Rathmore
Their mothers made the long journey to give them birth from the saltwater shore
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Still young in my memory their faces I know
As they walk up the Main Street down towards Minor Row
Their shoulder length hair blowing in the wind and rain
The past in my memory does ever remain
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O'er the mudflats of McLouglins beach in South Gippsland it is pleasant to hear
The flute of the curlew at this time of year
Though five hours by car distant to my heart 'tis near
That beautiful music melodious and clear
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The story has been told down through the ages of how men nailed the son of God to a wooden cross
And still we hear of crimes against humanity and one person's loss of rights is everybody's loss
And still we have men going to war for God and Wealth and Land and Glory though their God hardly with them would agree
And many far too many go unpunished for awful crimes against humanity.
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It's only six to seven miles I've walked that far before
From Millstreet to the Kerry border by the Town of Rathmore
And though to some six miles may seem a long walk to a person young and strong
A six miles jog is easy the distance doesn't seem long.
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The song of the robins I fancy I hear
In Claramore wood in the Spring of the year
A memory from long gone years I do retain
Despite the passing of time in me it does remain
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In pubs in the Town in view of Clara hill
They sung and re-sung the song Bold Thady Quill
In June when the flowers by Finnow were in bloom
And Millstreet had won a big game in Macroom
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I still recall a memory from my childhood
Long years ago and many miles away
The robin on the flowering hawthron singing
And the high fields wore their wildflowers of the May.
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In St Davids in Wales i picked potatoes in my early twenties
And though that was more than thirty years ago
On looking back in time it doesn't seem that long
The months and years did not drag on that slow.
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For as long as you possess the gift of memory
Your past will live in you as it does live in me
Old friends you remember some with the dead lay
And others you have not seen for many a day
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From the place i was born and raised in i live far away
And to many there i would be a stranger today
Since many i knew there are deceased and others from there did migrate
That to few things stay the same i too can relate
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For as long as i live the memory i will retain
Of old Mushera cloaked in the gray fogs of rain
And on the fog shrouded high Butter Road the cars crawl up and down
Through the hills between Rylane and Millstreet Town
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The last time i climbed to the cross on Clara's summit
On a November day twenty five years ago
The weather dry but the mountain air was chilly
Since the clock has ticked on and time has become my foe
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In memory i only can go back in time
And in memory i only can re-live my prime
But the now is what matter as the rational say
And the past just a memory of a bygone day
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The sun blazing bright in the blue and gray sky
And the blackbird he pipes in the parkland nearby
His music does take me to places far away
To cooler and breezy weather in the northern May.
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The roads of life I have journeyed up and down
Since I left Claragahatlea a mile from Millstreet Town
But in my flights of fancy the past comes to me
And remembered faces again I do see
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It was the Cork County Council i remember
Who cut the small wood by our house away
They did it for the purpose of road widening
But what a barren mess it looks today.
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The memories of what was today are with me
She lives in my memory the Rose of Knocknagree
With hair to her shoulders wavy and brown
Dancing in the Star Ballroom in Millstreet Town
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When I was a young Schoolboy more than five decades ago
I first saw the dark brown river bird with breast as white as snow
On a rock midst the stream rapids a mile west of the town
I watched as he sang his head bobbed up and down.
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The deep, deep emptiness of solitude
That drives one to a melancholy mood
I stand here on green bank of riverside
With thoughts on recent victim of suicide.
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For as long as the gift of memory you retain
Memories of your past with you will remain
Memory the only link from the past that does remain strong
It even can come to you in the words of a song
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For him just a memory of another day
The songs of the wood birds and the sweet scent of hay
Far from the noisy suburbs where he lives and works for pay
In the high country in distance far away
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Flowing from high Claramore in view of Clara Hill
In memory i hear it the silver tongued rill
On towards the river babbling on it's way
It is never silent by night or by day
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In Waverley's Jells park I felt in luck
A rare, rare sighting of rare freckled duck
A pair swam and dived not far from the lake shore
A dozen metres maybe even more.
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When I was young long years ago ten years going on eleven
Cork were Munster football champs that year in nineteen fifty seven
And Toots Kelleher from Millstreet Town was in his prime and glory
One of Ireland's best forwards in his day and of him there's many story.
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The Summer holidays i did enjoy
In uncle Dan and aunt Mary's farm in Lisnaboy
When i was a young boy going back in time
Many years before i discovered rhyme
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In my flights of fancy I fancy I hear
The song of the curlew melodious and clear
Above the brown bogland from here far away
When the bog cotton bloom in the prime of the May
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The travellers parked their romany horse drawn vans at the Shannaknock Cross when when frosted fields were bare
But despite the cold and damp weather they did not seem to have a care
Their pinto horses with ropes tied to trees munched on bunches of hay
And old Clara Hill wore his hat of snow on a cold February day
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Than the coastal scenery few things seem so fair
The smell of the kelp in the cool evening air
The babble of the waves lapping on to the shore
A sound destined to live forever more
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The past in reality in the forever gone
But within the mind it is living on
And as long as the gift of memory you retain
Your memories of what was with you will remain
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