894
Patience I quoted in my first Valentine
As fifty years ago I did not write
Poetry, and probably lacked the time &
Patience;
But how I wish that I'd had the insight
Which half a century brings, so every line
I've written since that day would burn as bright
As that first flame, so fragile, yet a sign
Of all that followed, till the fire's light
Embraces everything that's yours and mine.
Brian Hick February 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 30.1.23
893
Now I need no words to speak to you
Writing this seems somewhat out of line
But being human, even though I see through
Ther verbage, I need to take my time
Moving away from what I thought I've known,
Even if I abondoned it erstwhile
As infantile fantasy, hoping that I'd grown
Out of comfortable habits which beguile
But simply cannot pass the acid test,
The rational and scientific stare,
Which easily dismisses any quest
For actual answers to a well aimed prayer;
But then, of course, prayer's just pie-in-the-sky
To those who have not taught their souls to fly.
Brian Hick Feb 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 27.1.23
892
Enfolded in Love
At last I can address you as my God
Without concern, for we know what we mean,
I feel no need to struggle or explain
What lies beyond mere words, which may seem odd
To intellectuals or those who insist
On disecting life up to the point
Where it has vanished and dismembered joints
Lie bleeding, meaningless, for they have missed
The beauty of the whole which was far more
Than simply an enlisting of its parts
And all scientific tools and arts
Cannot encompass that which I adore.
I looked for you, but looked in the wrong place,
Until you caught me up in Love's embrace.
Brian Hick February 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 26.1.23
891
Light the fire; we need to warm our souls.
Build up the blaze until it roars with light
And all the world's consumed with glorious coals.
Light the fire.
Watch carefully and tend it through the night
Feeding it with kindness which cajoles
Reluctant boughs to turn themselves to bright
Beacons of renewal where the goals
Are crystal clear for all who would unite
To face a world of obstinate black holes.
Light the fire.
Brian Hick 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 23.1.23
890
John of the Cross
Scribo ergo sum; I do not write
To please you reader, thoughI trust you might
Accept these lines which fought their way to light.
Scribo ergo sum.
For words are all I have to pass to you
Who cannot see into my muted soul
To touch the points which ravish every part
Of it, when I, in silence, contemplate the whole
Created world, down to its beating heart
Where love forever blind is ever true.
Scribo ergo sum.
Brian Hick 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 20.1.23
889
Spring is on the way even though
It's sleeting and the temperature's at nought
With winds from the north east threatening snow.
Spring is on the way.
The starlings know; the fox has taught
His cubs to sense the warming sunlight grow
Day by day; a neighbour's cat is caught
Idling on the shed roof, while below
The badgers scratch and make a sleepy effort
To shrug off winter's comfortable glow.
Spring is on the way.
Brian Hick Feb 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 18.1.23
888
Barcarolle
So Hoffmann was a better poet because
He suffered much for love and of course lost
Only to pour his soul into his verse
As if that would prevent it being worse
Than all the maudlin tosh that will erupt
In four weeks time when Valentine's corrupt
And turgid effluence is here again
For neets and part-time shelf-stackers to drain
The dregs of doggerel as they stand confused
By pussy-cats and love-hearts; which to choose
To fill the void, as education left
Them tongue-tied, incoherent and bereft
Of that small spark which, with a gentle shove,
Might quietly gain confidence in love.
Brian Hick Jan 2011
©copyright Sally Hick Jan 2023
887
Tae Friendship
Where are the days we used to know
The memories of what has been
When you and I were young and keen
And life was just an endless flow
Of days and nights without a care,
Slipping onward while we lived
And loved, ignoring how life sieved
Our thoughts and feelings, unaware
That all the time an end was calling -
Not that it would be today -
But what we cherished on the way
Would all too soon be past recalling
Unless we hold to what is here,
The friends who share our daily round
Our moods, flippant or profound,
Our celebrations, times of care.
So on this night when we again
Share haggis and a glass or two
Let's pray we will continue true
In friendship, as we've always been.
To Friendship
Brian Hick Jan 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 13.1.23
886
Consider.....
Little bird why is your song so bright
On this grey morning, when the trees are dead
And not a hint of welcoming sunlight
To warm us as we struggle out of bed?
Could it be your limited brain size
Does not have room to contemplate the way
Things might turn out, so that your spirits rise
And cheerfully give thanks for the new day
When all we see is weeks of steaming trains,
Cold blasts and irritation at the thought
Of all we must endure befoe the gains
Of late spring warmth and all last summer bought.
You sing so me as if there were no need
To take thought for the future and its seed.
Brian Hick Jan 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 11.1.23
884
What faith has a marshmallow?
I really need to know.
For what you say
May seem okay
Until we need to grow
And challenge what we're doing
Reach out beyond the safe
To find the Way
That brings today
Beyond the crass naif.
I need a faith that's vibrant
That pulses with the blood
To scorch the air
Without a care
And know that life is good.
I feel it in the music
That echoes from the spheres
Or in the night
Peels with its light
Invisible and rare.
I feel it in the dancing
Of folk upon the Downs
The Morris Teams
The distant dreams
Of rituals profound.
I feel it in the silence,
The sunlight on the sea
Where amber clouds
Of evening shroud
The cliff tops and the quay.
I feel - but there is more
To life than what I feel;
My inner voice
Cries out rejoice
Regardless of the 'real'.
Reach out to the transcendent
Reach out beyond the spheres
To truth that is resplendent
Out-weighing human tears.
Brian Hick January 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 9.1.23
883 (continuation of 882. S.H)
Struck dumb, feeling I dare not even try,
I realise how stupid I have been.
You may be great and make most readers sigh
With admiration, like some love-sick teen
But all we really do is mess with words
Creating patterns for those who choose to read
So worrying about them is absurd
For we have no control, once we concede
The poem's finished and we cast them out
Into a world where, if they're mine the lot
Will go unnoticed, while yours without a doubt
Will pass as perfect, even if they're not.
And even if somebody likes my craft -
Make money out of verse? Don't make me laugh.
Make money out of verse? Don't make me laugh,
For though a few may live by what they write
Even the best must find another craft,
A lectureship or TV late at night
Where they can carve a corner for themselves
Which feeds the mortgage or the private schools,
Fills up the Sainsbury's trolley or the shelves
Of books within their study, while the fools
Convince themselves that literary lives
Are somehow far above the stupid mass
Who choose to write but must survive the knives
Of bitter critics and the upper class
Who all know what they like and what is best
Though they refuse to put it to the test.
Though they refuse to put it to the test
We grudgingly accept they have the power
To over-praise what's second rate at best
And vilify the sensitive who cower
Before the money and the Oxbridge crew
Who've never had to work for what they need
Their silver spoons, passed only to the few,
Would choke us if we dared to match their greed.
Yet they're the ones who have the means to choose
Who will succeed and who will be ignored
Regardless of our worth, as if the booze,
The tweets and chatter could make up for the bored
And hollow lives of vacuous part timers
Whose verse is only meant for social-climbers.
Whose verse it only meant for social climbers?
Well certainly not mine or I would be
Far better off than now, not stuck with rhymers
Who dabble in obscure anthologies
Produced for those who think they can write verse
But
Brian Hick Jan 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 6.1.23
882
On hearing your sonnets at Stratford, 7 January
It really isn't fair that after years
Of writing sonnets - some of them not bad -
I feel as though I might as well give up.
Faced with what you wrote, I must be mad
To hope that anything I might put down
Could hold a candle to your lightest line
And what I think profound will simply be
Iambic doggerel, nowhere near sublime.
And yet, and yet my heart is made like yours
As liable to vagaries of mood
Or temper, while my mind is as aware
Of failure and stupidity as of good.
So when I read your sonnets, why am I
Struck dumb, feeling I dare not even try?
Brian Hick January 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 4.1.23
881
January
Individual leaves hang like dead men
So many corpses from an autumn cull
Their weight, lightly suspended from the boughs
Await the final drop into the pool
Of mud and mucus, melted where it lies.
Across grey swathes of marshland, morning mists
Ooze and bite the tired commuters' ears
Drifting back to work after a week
Of too much drink, no exercise and fears -
In spite of all the crackers and mince pies -
That weeks now wait inert before the sky
Will welcome them with light as they leave home
And early morning warmth will creep down roads
Now damp, silent and endless before dawn
Awaiting their salvation from the skies.
Brian Hick January 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 2.1.23
