Back from holiday last week. At a certain age it is natural to start to wonder just how many more times you will come over the brow of a hill to see the wide curve of a beach below and a tall sea glittering, or look out of a window at night to see a bright half-moon riding above a dark headland. For Molly Holden, diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, the curtailment of her adventuring, as she poignantly relates in this poem, came all too early.

Holidays, Explorations

How can I bear it
that journeying’s over
while still the heart’s un-
regenerate rover,

still longs to visit
strange hamlet, strange river,
to feel at view’s width
the authentic shiver?

Now I must practise
good grace at parting,
to wish others joy
though I am not starting

the ride through the sunrise
to valleys of vision.
I fix on my smile now
with summer precision.

Molly Holden