In My Memory It Remains Poem by Francis Duggan

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.

But the old fields I'm sure would look much the same
And many of them had their own given name
And the birds of the fields and the wood and hedgerow
Would sound the same as the birds that I knew years ago.

But the mentors of my boyhood in eternal rest lay
In the old cemetery by the hill far away
It was by good example in life they did lead
Though nothing of their lives in books one can read.

But most of the people I grew up with I may not now recognize
They would have changed beyond recognition to my eyes
And though some with hair dyes may cover their gray
Time leaves the face looking older like a flower in decay.

In my memory Millstreet has not undergone change
But in reality if that was the case then that would seem strange
In the old Town now a stranger I may be
For few if any there would now recognize me.