Marjorie Holmes

Who Am I? 

A young girl skipping through the body of an old woman,
hope singing through the Valley of Despair –
a continual, continually beginning,
every chapter closing on a dare.

A dreamer feding on the memories of her forbears,
pinning them down although their glory’s flown,
strolling through woods with Shelley, Wordsworth, Keats –
not noticing the present boyfriend’s gone.

A prisoner tunnelling through walls of indecision,
trying to glimpse the sky that is her life,
losing impetus and burying meaning –
a someone else’s mother, daughter, wife.

An actress with these relatives inside her,
or living in the audience instead –
hungry for the lights so long denied her,
prey to situations in her head.

A vagrant knitting every phrase together,
until her life looks like the Circle Line
on which she sits and travels round forever,
while slipping through the frontiers of time.

Marjorie Holmes's booklet Keeping the Balance has just been published by Survivors' Press (ISBN 978-1-874595-20-5), at £4+£1 p&p.