Going Home
The train is packed - the last day of the hols -
A family returns to its estate
In Peckham, and tired children wait
Eking out time with MP3s and dolls.
South London accents swim across the aisles
Excitement tempered by the thought of school
Next week, for nobody can fool
These returnees to keep their summer smiles.
A last view of the sea, a final wave
To cows and sheep before the suburbs close
Upon them and a sudden strillness shows
They're nearly home; now they must be brave
Till they can come to Hastings once again
But, oh, the months of dullness until then!
Brian Hick September 2009
©copyright Sally Hick 29.8.22
The King of Instraments
I suppose that he was someone's pride and joy
But now, squat and abandoned, he waits
The demolition crew, unless the fates
Can find a buyer, eager for a toy.
Sixty years disinterest and neglect
Have gradually reduced his usefulness
And decorators with their uncleared mess
Have choked his pipes and left his chests bedecked
With rubble, dust, dead pigeons and the rest.
Pedal draw-stops don't, and on his Swell
The bottom octave does not speak at all
But then, who cares to hear him at his best?
A monarch needs a Kingdom to inspire
And if he can't - what use the Angelic Choir?
Brian Hick Summer 2009
©copyright Sally Hick 26.8.22
Bank Holiday - musings
I wanted to stay in and do some work
- not that I had any work to do -
But the sea was calling me to go
And simply be, whether or not I wrote.
Stripped to the waist, he stands upon the groin
Posed until the moment when he flips
Into the air and lands, to laughs and quips
From those who watch, but do not join.
Indulge each moment for we never know
When it will simply be too late
To gratify each other and the wait
May be too long for love to gently grow.
I took some pics while walking by the sea
And some of them were good, but when I came
To download them and give each one a name
I pressed delete - and so they ceased to be.
Brian Hick summer 2009
©copyright Sally Hick 24.8.22
Writer's block
As many writers seem to set aside
Certain hours each day for quiet times
To concentrate on turning out their rhymes
Or chapters for a novel, I decide
That I will do so too, and yesterday
I went into the woods, sat on a bench,
And started writing, hoping to retrench
The fallow hours that currently hold sway
Forming verses with consummate ease
While I sit surrounded by the trees
Which mark the progress of this woodland Ride
Between Bohemia Road and Shoredean's side.
It didn't work; the Muse was still in bed
So I went home and cut the grass instead.
Brian Hick August 2009
©copyright Sally Hick 22.8.22
Summer's End
During the night a flower pot was up-turned.
We saw it from the windo but the rain
Gusted by the wind, kept us indoors
Until mid-morning, when I ventured out
To see if our badgers had returned.
No sign of them, but, despite the warmth
Oozing from the late August sun,
The air had turned autumnal and the leaves
Were blustering above me, shutting out
The distant whine of gulls - and starlings, who
Sat clustered on the chimney-pots before
They swirled and scattered to the south once more.
Brian Hick August 2009
©copyright Sally Hick 19.8.22
After Arcadia
If, in the end, it all comes down to number
And nothing is, which is not simply maths,
What is the point of contemplating beauty
Or challenging the eye or ear with paths
That lead me nowhere but to introspection,
Subjective reflex on what is percieved
Balanced against genetic intuition
And bias from my parents, now concieved
As Truth, when in reality it's nothing
But affectation and synaptic links
Twinkling in the darkness of my brains
Fooling me that it actually thinks
When all the time it's no more replete
Than ticking neutrons gradually losing heat.
Brian Hick 2009
©copyright Sally Hick 17.8.22
St James' Park
Thirty-four Norwgians pass me by
Led by a red umbrella and behind
Two flags to keep the stragglers in check
And stop them getting lost as they all wind
Their way towards the Palace down the Mall.
A squirrel draws attention to itself
Posing in the tree and snatching food
From cooing tourists easily engulfed
By urban wildlife and the scruffy flocks
Of pigeons grabbing everything in sight.
I sit, ignored as they all wander by
Happy to indulge the summer light.
A lull, a moorhen scurries from the lists
Dipping at crumbs the docile pigeons missed.
Brian Hick summer 2009
©copyright Sally Hick 15.8.22
Pebbles
You wander off to paddle
Choosing a spot where the outgoing tide
Has left a small patch of damp sand.
I prefer the pebbles
And stay half-way up the beach.
I'd like to pick one up and take it home
But find I'm at a loss
And cannot choose.
I lay surrounded by them
Millions of years old
Milled by the channel currents
And the wind
To a lumpy mattress
comfortable enough for half an hour.
My fingers rummage but the more I look
The less I seem to see.
How can I pick just one
When all are perfect and unique
Worth a world of scrutiny
Before I dare pass on to the next
Yet, as in any gallery,
It's easier to scan than to observe
And so I miss each tiny miracle
Less aware
Than the boy who picks with care
Then skims his choice across the evening's tide.
Brian Hick 2009
©copyright Sally Hick 12.8.22
Shropshire Hills
Shrewsbury
Smoke and steam and smut and dirt
The clatter of iron wheels
The slamming doors, the restaurant car
Oh, I know how it feels
To visit grandparents in Easter hols
With a taxi to the station
Then rattle around for hours on end
Before your destination.
Canon Street is to the east
Off the Monkmoor Road,
Past our Congregational Church
To our grandparents abode
And oh the joy of nanny's house
Compared to ours in Fulham
An inside loo, a bathroom too
With hot water to fill 'em.
The garden overlooked the track
And I could stand each day
To watch the London trains arrive
And freight trains on their way
To Holyhead or Manchester
Llandudno or Chester
I didn't care as I waved on
To the guard and to the driver.
Each Good Friday we would go
To Stretton for a walk
Up the Cardingmill Valley
For tea, or maybe stalk
On up to the Longmynd
Before we came back home
By bus the Abbey Foregate
With no more time to roam
Across our secret Shropshire HIlls
'til, half a century on,
We came to the Longmynd Hotel
And I heard again the song
That I heard when as a boy
I walked these hills apart
And knew once more the joy I'd felt
A Shropshire lad at heart.
Brian Hick 2009
©copyright Sally Hick 7.8.22
Shropshire Hills
Stokesay
The hourly bus to Craven Arms
Winds smoothly through the lanes
From Shrewsbury to Ludlow Town
And then winds back again.
So off to Stokesay down the road
Along with Saga coaches
For sandwiches and camomile
Before the rain approaches.
But the gods all smile today
The sun shines for our trip
With audiophones pressed to our ears
We roam the halls and grip
The medieval hand-rail
Up to the second storey
Where fireplace and panelling
Give up their latent glory
Before we meet up in the Court
To hear an actor tell
Of Agincourt and death in war
Wow - doesn't he do well!
I didn't know how close we came
To losing to the French
Or how the dysentery came near
To killing, in its stench,
The flower of English warriors
The bowmen and the mighty
Who worked a miracle before
Returning home to Blighty.
For those few moments
I was off into another time
Of Shakespear and heroism
Of massacre and grime,
Where real pain and real death
Confronted real men
Who bled and died without a sense
Of why - or where or when.
For us it's history, for them
A matter of life and death
And in the chyrchyard just outside
A statue stands abreast
The many graves of local folk
Naming the few who were
Parish born and parish lost
Forever, through two wars
But more than this, for once it names
The men who did return
Whose quiet guilt and worried lives
Have carried in their turn
A truth we seldom need to face
When we talk of war
For more come back disabled
Than ever die before
The onslaught of the generals
The cluster bombs and mines;
And while we mourne the coffins
To the inured we seem blind.
So just for once at Stokesay
We can give thanks for those
Who fought and won but lived on
In peaceful times and chose
To keep their memories to themselves
Happy in the knowledge
That we were free to live and work
And send our kids to College
Rather than see them massacred
Upon some foreign field
For someone else's mad idea
Of profit or of yield.
Brian Hick 2009
©copyright Sally Hick 6.8.22
Shropshire Hills
A Shropshire Lad
I love our Southern Downlands
And Hadrian's Wall is fine
But Shropshire Hills
Alone can fill
This Shropshire heart of mine
Here in the heart of England
Standing on Battle Stone
It seems to me
That I can see
The whole world as one.
To Shrewsbury and Atcham
The place where I was born
The eleven-ten
From Paddington
To Nanny's for half-term.
Church Stretton in the valley
Where as a boy I'd roam
Up Cardingmill
To Haddon Hill
Free from school and home.
Then out to Viroconium
Where as a youth I dug
The Roman Bath
And the path
Of Classics learned to love.
To the south the Malverns
Where Elgar used to walk
To hear the trees
Sing melodies
He captured in his work.
The Brecons on the horizon
Black mountains further awayt
The Golden Valley
Where Sam and Sally
Hired bicycles for the day.
I love our Southern Downlands
The North Downs are not bad
But Shropshire Hills
Alone can fill
The heart of a Shropshire Lad.
Brian Hick 2009
©copyright Sally Hick 5,8,22
Shropshire Hills
Cardington
After lunch at the Royal Oak
We visited the church
Where three old ladies (well they were!)
Served the village creche.
A single little girl played on
While we chatted freely
Of bright millennium installations
And local embroidery pieces.
We left to continue on our way
And only later on
Did I seem to sense the vivid
Icons they had formed.
Three women - three goddesses -
Guarding a holy child
Happily, in a sacred place,
Surrounded by the wild
But unifying Shropshire hills;
The sense of tensions held
In perfect equilibrium
Of earth and spirit furled
In one unconscious ripple
Of everything that is
And we, supported on the waves
Of urgency to live
Forever, as we do today
Only aware that joy
Like this, can outlast the moment
If we let it fly.
Brian Hick 2009
©copyright Sally Hick 4.8.22
Shropshire Hills
Ragleth Hill
It drizzled up to Snatchfield Farm
Poured as we tramped the wood
With views the guide-books recommend
Blocked out, as we stood
Beneath the rowan and the elm
Unable, like the sheep,
To ignore the ever seeping damp
Creep in at neck and feet;
But as we followed through the ferns
Along the velvet path
That leads directly to the top
The rains faded at last
Leaving us to watch the flux
Of summer storms in flight
One second hiding Wenlock Edge
Then flooding it with light
As if the cloud-dome up above
Had choreographed the scene
Etching out each hill in turn
Dissolving black to green
Pinpointing individual sheep
As shadows rushed across
The woods and open moorlands
From Shrewsbury to Ross.
Dizzied by the speed of change
We can no more than stand
A silent centre while the world
Spins almost out of hand;
And all the while the sheep ignore
The marvels that we see
Content to go on munching grass
And letting all things be.
Brian Hick 2009
©copyright Sally Hick 3.8.22
Shropshire Hills
Monday morning - Longmynd Hotel
A beetle drops out of the tree
And lands upon her glasses
Refusing then to fly away
She comes across and passes
Its tiny form onto my thumb
Where it sits and waits
Then moves one leg at a time
As if it hesitates
Before deciding to fly off
Giving me time to see
The folded patterns of its wings
The careful symmetry
Of dark brown shades, the orange spot
The crenulated sides
As it its body is a shield
Washed up upon the tide
From some forgotten history
Before the conscious mind
Imposed its history making thought
Insisting it can find
Patterns in the universe
And truths beyond the known.
Yet here am I sat quietly
If not quite alone
Finding tales in beetle's wings
When, if the truth is known,
The patterns of the universe
Have all evolved and grown
Without the need for human thought
And if I take delight
In a simple beetle's wings
It should suffice - alright?
Brian HIck 2009
©copyright Sally Hick 2.8.22
From Cardingmill Valley to Pole Bank
Through Rectory Wood to Little Spout
Then on the Shropshire Path
Across heather and the moor
To Pole Bank heights at last.
The Malvern Hills are to the south
With Shrewsbury to the north
Cannock Chase is in the east
But the rain clouds force
Is gathering in western skies
To dampen our tomorrow
So, on the Longmynd for today
There is no time for sorrow,
I passed this way when just a boy
With David from next door
And felt we were the only ones
Who dared to explore
This silent valley with its rush
Of water on each side
And climbing up to hanging bluffs
There was no need to hide
The excitement and the joy we felt
At one with all the world
- short trousers and sensible shoes -
But spirits now unfurled
Across the wide expanse of gorse
On sheep tracks hardly seen
Climbing ever higher until
On every side the scene
Exploded, as it did today,
With, in the distant haze,
Places I have grown to love
United as the ways
Have come together in this place
A crossroad of returns
Where all the joy that I felt then
Once more within me burns,
Brian Hick 2009
©copyright Sally Hick 1.8.22
