Or will he feel a complete stranger
When he goes back to Kiskeam?
He’s not been back since he has left there
Half of a century ago
Brown haired and fit as a wild hare
Not many there now he may know.
Home to the old Village in Duhallow
Where the ageless Araglen flow
He was a young man of the fifties
But the years have left him gray and slow.
Maybe he should not go back there
To where of he so often dream
Often the returned migrant disappointed
To find the home place not what they thought it might seem.
Fifty long years in Australia
It seems a long distance away
From Kiskeam in North Cork in Duhallow
To South Gippsland and Venus Bay.
He is leaving this Southern Country
He says he is going home to die
But will he feel that he is a stranger
In the places where he lived as a boy?