The Memories Are Fading

I have sung about Duhallow and the rivers, streams and rills
And I've sung about Sliabh Luachra and about the Boggeragh hills
And the lake at Gortavehy and the wood at Claramore
But the memories are fading of a green and distant shore.

I've seen icicles on cow shed spout when frosty winds did blow
And I've seen old Caherbarnagh in his winter hat of snow
And the fields by the Blackwater submerged from the flood overflow
But the memories are fading and that was long ago.

I've seen the sparrow on barn rafters weave her nest with strands of hay
And I've heard the skylark singing o'er the rushy fields in May
And the territorial robin carolling in small wood in Claraghatlea
But the poor bird he departed when the trees were cut away.

I have heard and seen the corncrakes when I was young school going boy
And their chicks they would have hatched out in late june or in july
But the earlier grass cutting their nest and eggs destroyed
And in the meadows by the old home their distinct voices died.

In the Finnow River in Millstreet in the gray november dawn
From the bridge below the Town hill I have seen the salmon spawn
But the salmon became rarer when pollution caused disease
And the white blotched fish sick and dying surely not a sight to please.

Though I never met John Twomey Duhallow's laureate of rhyme
It's been forty years or longer since the bard was in his prime
I recall some of his verses poets like him are born not made
But some lines I keep forgetting and the words begin to fade.

I recall our hide and seek games in school yard at Millstreet Town
And the laughter in the lunch hour and boys running up and down
But many of the boys I went to school with live far distant from Millstreet
And I may not recognize them if by chance we now did meet.

I have heard the curlew piping o'er the bogland in the spring
And male chaffinch with the pink breast on a sunlit beech tree sing
But the curlew's notes seem distant and the chaffinch I barely hear
And the memories are fading they grow dimmer by the year.

I have grown to love the beauty of the white backed magpie's song
And I wake up in the morning to the voice of currawong
But the memories are fading with the passing of each day
Of the fields of old Duhallow more than half a world away.