Nature's First Lessons

The past is past the many seem to say
But some good memories with us tend to stay
And I have memories from a by gone day
Near Millstreet Town so many miles away.

My first lessons from Nature were learnt there
An old man told me how the shy brown hare
From predators hid her young born where the grass grew tall
That lesson from my young years I recall.

A skylark singing in the summer sky
A thing of beauty is a thing of joy
High above the bracken slopes of Clara Hill
The memory of her song is with me still.

The fox cubs playing outside their hidden den
In quiet place remote from dogs and men
Their mother bark they run to ground in fear
They feel safer in their earth when man is near.

Nature's first lessons with me still remain
The frog lay her jelly like eggs in flooded drain
In month or so the tiny tadpoles hatched out
And with wiggling tails I watched them swim about.

What's fun to boys to some may seem quite cruel
In mid summer in shallow river pool
We captured minnows by tying string to jam jar
Though some see that as taking fun too far.

In early summer when daylight hours were long
In Coolikerane the curlew's mating song
Above his bogland nesting ground he flew
And piped his notes curloo curloo curloo.

On higher branch of pine or cypress tree
The wood pigeon's flimsy stick nest I oft did see
I once climbed up to view the eggs she lay
Two small oval shaped a lighter pale to gray.

Good memories of the childhood years remain
A blackbird whistling in the wind and rain
And a walk in Nature was a thing of joy
In heart of every man there is a boy.

The past is past the many seem to say
But some good memories with us tend to stay
And I have memories from a by gone day
Near Millstreet Town so many miles away.