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

 1438

On a balcony

Overlooking the canal

Italians chatter.

Clear skies and bright sun;

But, I am not in Venice,

This is Birmingham!

Brian Hick March 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 13.3.26

 1437

Two larks call to me

High above Ditchling Beacon;

Spring is here at last.

Brian Hick March 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 11,3,26

 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

 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