On The Powerlines On The Roadside Poem by Francis Duggan

Just a week from the start of the winter and more than three months from the Spring
Yet on the powerlines on the roadside I hear a male goldfinch sing
In the last days of the Autumn on this sunny morning in May
His kin birds now sing in woods and on hedgerows in the Northlands far away.

His song could not be mistaken I heard it when I was a boy
Far away in a green wood land when dawn was brightening the sky
Male goldfinch whistled his finest in the green wood by the lea
He was defending his borders and proclaiming his territory.

The sight of the beautiful bird on the powerlines took me to another Land
You who have never been migrants perhaps could not understand
How the distinct song of a goldfinch could cause nostalgia to wake
Just a brief yearning for what was a yearning now without ache.

Our past we cannot recover as our past forever is gone
But the fond memories of what was in our hearts still living on
The small song bird on the powerlines in his song carried me back
To that old town by the river and to the old mountain track.

I was one raised close to Nature Mother Nature the Goddess in green
Wood pigeons cooing in the mornings in the leafy groves of Dereen,
Skylark flew up from the rushes carolling as he did fly
Upwards and upwards ascending till he became a small speck in the sky.

Goldfinches sang on the hedgerows and chaffinch's song I knew well
All of the birds by my old home just by their songs I could tell,
Robin and song thrush and blackbird in the woods heralded the Spring
They are the children of Nature and Nature's a beautiful thing.

On the powerlines on the roadside I know to whom that voice belong
In the sun shine of the late Fall goldfinch is in the mood for song,
Nostalgia in me is stirring and I hear the rippling rill
Flowing along towards the river down the high field by the hill.