1436

Bind my head, place coins upon my eyes,

Carry my willow coffin to the sea;

Build my pyre at the turning tide

To let the gentle flames set my soul free.

        Pour the oil and set the wine,

        Sprinkle salt and break the bread,

        Share the fruits that have been gathered;

        Do not mourn that I am dead.

As smoke drifts up towards the rising moon

The ashes settle and the sea is calm,

Let me melt away into the night

Until there is nothing for the dawn.

        Nothing save a memory

        The sum of all the hours passed

        A clutch of fading images

        Disappearing like the grass

For you will thrive though I have left this place

To generate the truth which we have known

Touching lives and healing all who come

To celebrate the love which was our own.

Bind my head, place coins upon my eyes,

Carry my willow coffin to the sea;

Build my pyre at the turning tide

To let the gentle flames set my soul free.

Brian Hick March 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 9.3.26 

 1435

Ditchling Beacon

I am not dressed for walking on the Downs

But having time between this morning's church

And listening to Sibelius at the Dome

Here I am - battered by the wind,

Stepping round the mud and boggy ruts

Heading up toward the Beacon's top.

A flock of sheep shelter as they crop

Downwind of a scrubby hedge which cuts

Across the open downland till it finds

The South Downs Way - but I must turn back home,

Or rather to the car park - while I search

For meaning in these moments on the Downs;

But who needs meaning when earth and sky above

Are one with me rejoicing in your love.

(Jung: I do not need to believe - I know.)

Brian Hick March 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 6.3.26

 1434

Let everything that is me be

Emptied out to become

Nothing

That is not You.

Brian Hick Lent 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 4.3.26

 1433

She drifts by with lunch in silver-foil

To find her boyfriend outside on his bike;

And I am left to ruminate that she

Is a closed book

Save for the meal she served to us

At Joya, where she works,

Relying on her tips, before she leaves

To drift into a world we'll never know,

A way of life we'll never comprehend;

For while our paths have crossed this lunchtime, her's

Is lost beyond the smile she gave us

As I paid the bill -

And even if sometime we return

She will have moved on

Till nothing can recall today

Save for these few lines

Which she will never see.

Brian Hick March 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 2.3.26

 1432

Jean de la Fontaine

Don't write about the rhyme scheme, make it work,

Sort out your ideas and don't shirk

The task in hand as if the need to rhyme

Were more important than the need to say

Something that's of value and to sway

The reader who has taken her own time

To contemplate your thoughts here on the page

The mysteries of image and the rage

Which only a true poet can set down

Within the confines of an antique form

Cajoling it until the verse it born

To acclamation, credit and renown.

Brian Hick February 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 26.2.26

 1431

I need to find a form which is my own;

Not any form but one which can flow free

As if I wasn't writing poetry

But simply paring language to the bone

So that it said exactly what I think

And you would understand in simple terms

The depth and the complexity which yearns

To be transformed, changed from idea to ink,

Until, as if osmosis had occurred,

Nothing stands between the latest germ

Of an idea, and translation's worm

Cannot withhold the power of my word;

            But here we have another Sonnet, penned

            As if pentameters were their own end.

Brian Hick February 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 24.2.26

 1430

Our solar panels

Are quite unresponsive to

Fifty shades of grey.

Brian Hick February 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 20.2.26