The image has stayed with me since last summer
when we sat on the restaurant’s terrace
sipping Prosecco with our small family
to celebrate our first fifty years
of marriage: a view I had not seen before
of these straits I thought I knew so well
between Ynys Môn and Gwynedd’s coast,
a view – past Bangor Pier and Gallow’s Point,
over the Lavan Sands and Dutchman’s Bank
hidden beneath the high tide’s guileful waters –
to the rose horizon, and Liverpool Bay
out of sight with its wrecks and wind farms.
And I felt then – relaxed with the balm
of the sun, the wine, and those I am
lucky enough to love – and know now
with the wisdom of a year ever closer
to that untravelled bourn, how, irrespective
of the heart’s gazetteer, its topography,
all love comes unbidden like the elements.
By David Selzer