1492

        Mahler 3

What God tells me.

          Why is

     God's music

  So much easier

Than God's word?

Brian Hick September 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 19.9.26

 1491

This is just between ourselves

Just for you and me

And if we want to write in rhyme

Well then, let it be;

For no one else will see the words

Which we put on this page

And nobody will know if we

Are high or in a rage

For this is our own time

Though others call it prayer

And go all holy on the world

As if they do not dare

Admit that it is easy

Listening to you each day

Easy soaking up your love

Letting you have your way

And all I have to do is be -

As best as I can -

Your hands and eyes, your thoughts, your words

To each woman and man;

For, while it's easy for us

To join in love like this

Others find it oh so hard

To accept the bliss

Which your stillness, like a dream,

Wakens in my heart

Till all that you created me

Is you in every part.

Brian Hick September 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 17.9.26

 1490

Deep night and a chilly fold

Lambs are bleating, ewes are cold

Shepherds shiver in the dark

Sparrow sleeping, silent lark

Before the coming dawn.

Frost is creeping through the night

Silvered by the stars' pale light;

Wolves slink silent to their kill

Under the shadow of the hill

Before the coming dawn.

Is that the day warming the sky

Gilding clouds as they drift by?

No, for the night is hardly through

And there are many hours to go

Before the coming dawn.

See, see the light is growing fast

And the shepherds stand aghast

For high above an Angel sings

Hovering on silvered wings

Before the coming dawn.

Peace he brings to men on earth

Singing of a saviour's birth

God's love to all since time begun

Now revealed in his Son

As in the coming dawn.

Then let us sing to near and far

Alleluia, alleluia

For Love has come to all today

As will the coming dawn.

But we are hungry, we are tired

Bring us out some hot mince pies;

We are thirsty, we need wine

Or we'll come back another time

Before the coming dawn.

Brian Hick September 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 14.9.26

 1489

I love you is not the easiest thing to say

Even after almost 50 years

Of living cheek by jowl every day.

I love you

Should not bring doubts or unwanted fears,

For we have always travelled the same way

And while there may have been occasional tears

They brought us closer, for they did not stay

To fracture our deep unity, which towers

Above all else, and there's no need not say

I love you.

Brian Hick September 2015 (49th wedding anniversary)

©copyright Sally Hick 9.9.26

 1488

30. Aug 15

The shower trickled, either hot or cold

But at extremes scalding us or freezing

So we just gave up and had a wash.

Downstairs the cold tap oozed into the kettle

And while we had enough to make the tea

We knew something was wrong.

The website did not help but on our way

To church we got into a queue which crawled

Its way round roadworks by Old Roar.

Only when walking back home from St John's

Did I see the mud, the broken pavements

And curb-stones thrown about as if

We'd had an earthquake.

By eight o'clock that evening all was well.

Emergency supplies from Asda sat

Unused, as all taps flowed free once more.

Normality resumed

But this morning, making our coffee

I gave thanks for this normality.

Brian Hick 30.8.2015

©copyright Sally Hick 7.9.2026

1487

Stones for Dancing and Stone for Dying

These stones are for dancing

Cobbled streets down to the sea

Dry stone walls across the dales

Nine Ladies and Avebury Ring

Standing stones in hidden vales.

Lights at night upon a rock

Blazing hope across the sea

Tintern, Rievaulx, Lindisfarne

Rocks of Faith eternally,

            While man-made dogmas come and go

            We will dance the faith we know.

These stones are for dying

Roman castles, Norman keeps,

Wartime bunkers, Martello towers,

Granite, marble, concrete, slate,

Tombstones marked with faded flowers.

Memorials in market squares

Cryptic plaques upon church walls

Alters of eternal loss

Slabs upon Cathedral floors.

            While men lie beneath the stone

            Love will last, and love alone.

Brian Hick August 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 5.9.26

 1486

A verse for the Royal Vic

A Corbyn haiku;

All came easily.

But what I really yearn to say-

Those desperate thoughts

Unresolved within-

Refuse to surface

And inform

These lines.

Do I lack genius,

A real poet's art,

Or am I

Just confused?

Brian Hick August 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 2.9.26