With Me Now Just A Memory Poem by Francis Duggan

With me now just a memory but memories with us remain
In the heavy rains of late Winter the female frog lay in the drain
Her eggs like crystal lumps of jelly from which her tadpoles hatched out
And all around their watery home they wriggled all about.

For to grow into adult frogs not many would survive
For many tadpoles had to die for one predator to stay alive
To the taste buds of a grey heron a plump tadpole tasted sweet
As one of the favourite water dwelling things that a heron loves to eat.

But a few avoided the sharp beak of the lanky bird of prey
For to grow into adult frogs for that is Nature's way
Of insuring species survival in such Nature a huge part does play
Survival of the fittest as some are known to say.

With me now just a memory of times that are long gone
And though the past it is behind us the memories live on
And I retain the memory of the croaking of the frog
On their breeding time in late Winter in the drain beside the bog.