Francis Duggan Poems

Of singing their praises could one ever tire
Those brave men who took on the big mountain fire
Armed with sticks and shovels the blaze they did kill
That blackened the green face of old Clara hill.
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I remember and why not I that saturday in July
I was ten years or eleven since then many years gone by
And the weather not so summery rain clouds gathering in the sky
Slashing thistles for my uncle in a field in Lisnaboy.
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Last Spring the birds that nested in yonder wood if still alive will nest there too next Spring
And in decades from now their descendants will nest there for Nature is such an eternal thing
The reaper will never claim Mother Nature and she will live on in Earth forever more
When one Land is in the cold grip of Winter you will find that Spring is on another shore.
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Oh the wind that's soughing tonight
Through the pine trees seem to say
The sinful yet may see God's light
Love and peace may come some day.
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A fellow once described me as a teller of tall stories
He told me you go pull my other leg
I often hear you talk of Clara mountain
And of the mountain fields of Clarabeg.
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You were feeling so despondent and none for you seemed to care
And you were down to your last five dollars and you were bordering on despair
And you called to the lotto agency at the corner of the street
And bought yourself a five dollar scratchy hoping lady luck you'd meet.
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In the early nineteen twenties when Britain as a World power
did rate
In the treaty of Ugayr to Iraq and Saudi Arabia they gave some of Kuwait
And for full independence from the U.K.another four decades to wait
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Society now as always is unequal and the labourer seen as inferior to the king
So don't talk to me of an egalitarian society when the fact is there is no such a thing
We'll always have racism and class distinction and we'll always have the great social divide
And inequality has never been more common as the gap between the rich and poor grow wide.
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That old black and white photograph bring back memories 'twas taken almost forty years ago
A wedding group all bright and happy faces and many of those people I did know
The baby in the group now close to forty on looking back those years just seemed to fly
'Twas taken when wildflowers bloomed in the meadows if not in May or June then in July.
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Our span of time one well might say is brief like all things of life that swim or walk or crawl
And stress and worry only hurries on our end so why not count our blessings though they may be small
And why feel self pity when self pity isn't good and it doesn't get us anywhere at all
The rose that in the Summer sunshine bloom will be long gone even before the Fall.
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