1443
Southampton
Town Quay, 4pm
Sun breaking through the clouds
My pencil's shadow poised across the page
A pint of Red Cat from the Dancing Man
The Solent silvered in striated light
Red Falcon loading for the Isle of Wight
Prose turns to verse as beer and sun combine
To turn these passing moments into wine.
Brian Hick March 2015
©copyright Sally Hick 25.3.26
1442
Equinox
The birds have sensed the turning of the days
And rock-bees warm themselves against the wall.
A robin boasts unseen beyond the twitten
Challenging our blackbird's morning call.
Skirting round the oak wood, as I stroll
To fetch the bread for breakfast, tiny points
Of pink smile from the branches which have stood
Barren since the winter dried their joints
Until this morning's sun - poised midway
Between a winter death and summer joy -
Heralded the signs of love to come,
All the gifts that nature can employ;
As if I can't recall the endless years
Your love's been there to dry up all my tears.
Brian Hick March 2015
©copyright Sally Hick 23.3.26
1441
What do you want to be?
How about a gap year before I face
The prospect of retirement by the sea,
When I'll have time to take a break to ask
What it is I really want to be?
After all for sixty of those years
I've studied, worked and striven for the sake
Of others who've my best interests at heart
Pointing to the road that I should take
But while I have enjoyed the way I've come
I've never really chosen what I'd do
The day-to-day simply relied upon
Necessity - the need to get us through.
Perhaps at last I'll take a moment which
Will bring a chance to really scratch the itch.
Brian Hick March 2015
©copyright Sally Hick 21.3.26
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
