1440
Frost on the fields
A heron lifts and glides
Silent
Silhouetted
A dark gash
Glimpsed against
Pale morning sun.
Two rabbits run
Along the hedge.
A pheasant stands
Perplexed, unmoving.
Near the railway line
Snowdrops and crocuses
Crouch
As if afraid
Their colour will confuse.
Commuters, closeted behind
Their headphones
Heedless
Unaware
That Spring
Is on the move.
Brian Hick March 2015
©copyright Sally Hick 18.3.26
1439
What will be written on my heart
What truths will endure
When all the jostle of this life
And language ae no more;
When conversation and debate,
Invective, boast or prayer
Have run their course, and drifted off
Like smoke, into the air?
What will survive when I am gone
If what I've left in print
Does not reflect what's in my heart,
What I feel and think;
And how can these amorphous words
Ever hope to be
More than a distant mirage
With little that is me?
And will this futile pleading
To try to prove that I
Was more aware of what you were
Before we both should die,
Be enough to overcome
The limits of these words
Which want so much to tell the truth
Yet always seem absurd
When faced with love that reaches out
Beyond the sterile spree
Of words on paper, trusting that
You'll know the best of me.
Brian Hick March 2015
©copyright Sally Hick 16.3.26
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
