The Past May Be Gone Poem by Francis Duggan

In three decades of years many minutes of time
And back in the late seventies I was past my prime
Back there in the place of the gray hooded crow
Where the river Finnow to the Blackwater flow.

The passing of the Seasons have left me looking gray
And plainly I have seen a far better day
And clearly my better days in life are gone
But only the lust for life keeps me keeping on.

It has been awhile since I heard the robin sing
And seen in the old fields the wild-flowers of Spring
And heard the dipper where the stream meets the rill
And hear the lark carolling above the hill.

The past may be gone but one can visualize
The song of the chaffinch in Spring at sunrise
In the sunlit meadow the sweet scent of hay
Far north by the mountains from here far away.

The past may be gone but the memories remain
And I hear the birds sing in the wind and the rain
In April when the shy and wild cock pheasant crow
In the field by the river where the rank rushes grow.