The Song Of The Dipper Poem by Francis Duggan

It has been awhile now and many a Spring
Since i heard the dark brown white breasted dipper sing
On a rock around where the stream rapids did flow
That is going back two decades and that seems long ago.

The years creep up on me and time it ticks on
And though some memories remain the past it is gone
Yet the song of the dipper i fancy i hear
In the stream in the old fields far distant from here.

Some things of the past with us always remain
And the dipper he sings in the wind and the rain
Storm water is gurgling in the flooded drain
And in my brief flights of fancy i am back home again.

I am past all nostalgia and nostalgic tears
And i have not heard the dipper for some twenty years
On a rock in the old stream engrossed in his song
Around where waters ripple and babble along.

On towards the big river that flows to the sea
The song of the dipper is still living in me
Some things in our past in us live till we die
And is any migrant that different to i?