Hiking with the Children
By Gretchen Yealy
How much farther?
Asked the smallest one.
The last mile is always the longest,
Sighed the tired mother.
Are we there yet?
Asked the middle child.
How shall we define “there,”
Mused the philosophical mother.
What will we do when we get there?
Asked the oldest child.
Only then shall we realize that the journey itself was our delight,
Thought the wise mother.
When she is not clambering up and down mountain passes, Gretchen Yealy works as a catalog librarian at Brown University.