Out of the dawn you come to me
As softly as a prayer
Caught on the breeze out of the east
That sings upon the air.
Out of the dawn you come to me
Death opening into Life
As Spring, in every tiny flower,
Resolves dark Winter's strife.
Out of the dawn you come to me
With Joy my soul befriend,
Surrounding all my life with love
I know will never end.
Brian Hick April 2011
© copyright Sally Hick March 2022
How to be a Christian
when the church gets in the way
And services and rituals
demand that we obey
The rules and regulations
of a patriarchal clique
Clinging to their power-base
while we are left to seek
The life Jesus has taught us
of giving and of love
Which is in the here and now
not in the heavens above.
But we all sit meekly
for hour after hour
Of superficial niceness
not the galvanising power
He promised to his followers -
a world turned upside down
Where love leads on to service
and the poorest wear the crown.
If the church were Christian
we wouldn't meet each week
To worship, we'd be out there,
feeding sheep.
If the church were Christian
there'd be no buildings left
They'd all be sold for housing
for the poor and the bereft.
If the church were Christian
it would hear the voice
Of prophets of this day and age
and wouldn't have a choice
For driven by the Spirit
it would upend the world
And the Banner of the Kingdom
would this day be unfurled
Not in pomp and power
or politicians guile,
The banner would be written
in the welcome of a smile
The hand upon the shoulder,
the sandwich for the man
Who shelters in the doorway
with his dog and lager can,
I want to be a Christian
for the way we live today
In the world and striving
to change things as I pray
That more and more will realise
the joy of serving you
Is not limited to Sundays
and the folks who fill the pew.
It is filling every moment
every hour and every day
With all the power you gave us
to draw others to the Way;
And anyone who does so -
who cares what they believe? -
Will be a follower of Jesus
comforting the souls who grieve,
Feeding those in hunger,
bringing healing to the lost
Visiting the prisons
and never count the cost.
If the church were Christian
I would not need to write
For we'd be out there doing
Now the things we know are right.
Brian Hick 2020 (?)
©copyright Sally Hick March 2022
686 The Roman Bath - a sonnet
Julius Caesar came here for the iron
Ignoring Bannatyne's imperial worth
But Caratacus, ever one to try out
New-fangled things, build us this splendid bath
In AD 51, as you'll have noted
When reading Mr Brisco's little guide
To Summerfields' palatial house and garden
Before you wandered down to sit beside
Our Roman Spring, with its lion heads (now missing;
Stolen by some Vandals in the night)
But if you close your eyes for just a moment
I'm sure that you can conjure up the sight
Of ladies, lying languid, in the sun
While young men oil themselves before they run.
Brian Hick 9.3.10
© copyright Sally Hick March 2022
On leaving a group walk to look at the building that was our first home.
Bonny Street
Why am I finding it so hard to write
About the minutes that we spent last week
Rushing hand-in-hand to Bonny Street?
Sneaking away, like lovers in the night,
From friends upon the Regents Park Canal,
Time fell away and, teenagers again,
We stood before our house - but here my pen
Dried up, for what I can recall
Wells up and overflows into a joy
Refusing to consign itself to verse
With sentimental notions or what's worse
A doggerel sonnet which will simply cloy;
How could a final couplet be enough
To sum up forty years of being us?
Brian Hick April 2009
©copyright Sally Hick April 2022
Down in the bar they are playing Keith Michell.
The Man of La Mancha oozes out behind
The football scores and chat of ancient cars
From anoraks who've gathered in like mind.
But I am back with Marriage Encounter and
That moment when I started to realise
We were more than just a pair in love
- Like Romeo & Juliet, all dewy-eyed.
We were united in a way we find
Created all across the natural world
Where love - too small a word for what I feel -
Shines out as if it had been hurled
Into eternity for all to see
That there is nothing else but you and me.
Brian Hick March 09
©copyright Sally Hick 11.3.22
Ask
Bald headed blokes with earrings and over-weight blondes
Surround me as I try to eat alone,
Cut off from life save for my mobile phone
And random thoughts of cliffs and hammer ponds
Somewhere upon the Downs, where the bleats
Of dull but friendly sheep will keep me free
From all Southampton's stark modernity.
The West Quay's numbing mall, the High Streets
Bland pedestrianisation and the miles
Of pavement that go nowhere but avoid
Any hint of human warmth or joy
Insisting this is life and we must smile.
Betjeman's prayer could not snuff out Slough
But, surely to God, Southampton must go now!
Brian Hick March 09
©copyright Sally Hick March 2022
The curse of In Memoriam
The silent carriage on the train
Two students chatter all the way
And overhead the tannoys play
Their verbal games to fuzz my brain.
A sudden silence; will it last?
Dare I take my book and draft
Some morning thoughts and try to craft
Lines before the coming blast
Of 'Now arriving at Winchester'
'Please take all your luggage with you'
'This train does not stop at Crewe'
'Change at Basingstoke for Bicester'.
Quiet again, but now I've lost
Any hope of rational thought
So turn back to the paper bought
At Waterloo, despite the cost,
With freebies lying all around
But who reads Metro, with its streams
Of soap and junk and unfilled dreams
When you yearn for matter more profound?
But then the new is so depressing
What with job losses and the banks
And of course no-one gives thanks
To those of us who are still working
Let alone the silent hoards
Who keep the country ticking over
Cleaning, sweeping, no hint of clover
Or a soft place in the Lords.
Pause there: the problem with this verse
As Tennyson found in In Memoriam
Is it can run as infinitum
Unless you have the guts to curse
And stop it dead.....
Brian Hick March 09
©copyright Sally Hick March 2022
Reality?
A glance and I am hooked for who could read
Or paddle a computer when this view
Demands indulgence. Who can heed
The night's concerns or work we should pursue?
Frosted vales await the morning's burn
And sheep stand idly as the stealing sun
Inches across the pasture to each in turn.
Rabbits, caught out, twitch and then are gone
In bolts of fluff into the shadowed bank,
Where primroses and daffodils ensure
My sentiments continue to give thanks
That this Wordsworthian moment is so pure.
But then, a call to say my father's ill,
Drowns happiness I'd come to feel.
Brian Hick March 2009
©copyright Sally Hick 4.3.22
I do not want to write this for the Spring
Is glorying the fields around the train.
Erupting greenery fills out the gaps
Between the hedges and last night's gentle rain
Has polished all the surfaces to gold.
Leafless trees, expectant, seem to know
Another week and every silent twig
Will smile with tiny buds, where once was snow.
Occasional veils of mist pretend that sleep
Can last for ever, but Sussex sheep were born
Cropping off the frost to help the sun
Imbrue creation with this glorious dawn.
Wordsworth's welcome to Westminster Bridge
These Sussex hills are where I'd rather live.
Brian Hick 16.3.09
©copyright Sally Hick 4.3.22
