the weeks stretched out to months
on a whispers gentle breeze
he hadn't been seen at Tuesday's mart
nor the public house for an evening's 45
most had blamed the drink driving laws
the cosmopolitan killing of simple ways  
yet the rusted gate, the untended fields
told another story not so easy to regale*

for hearts can break in so many ways
to devastating effect or slow debilitating decay
now sitting and staring by my window chair
this television set pleads for repeal of the eighth
unknowing that what is gone can never be
i reach within myself to find next to nothing there
for my mind now fails the memories of yesteryear  
no longer can i recall what Kathleen wore that day
setting sail to end one life so as to start anew
how i feared in truth that she would never return
like those letters i sent shrouded in uneasy pen
lost to the shame of the times as that were then
today, i'm the old man from an older boreen still
facing this death that relieves me of all my pain
my story, my dreams, my life i shall no longer recall
for my stage is set and the curtain it slowly does fall
where i will become so anonymous to even myself
perhaps only when all memory is lost shall i see
golden dreams to return my sweet Kathleen to me