979
Sally tries black tops
Official dress for The Class-
While I stand and nod.
Why is shopping called
Retail Therapy when it's
So, so depressing?
Dr Brian Hick summer 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 28.8.23
Monday, August 28, 2023
Friday, August 25, 2023
978
A confirmation at St Thomas' church
Enthusiasm rolls across the aisles.
The electronic organ can't subdue
The chatter and the warm exchange of smiles
As uncles meet their nieces on a day
Of special celebration, for a gift
Unseen, uncosted, yet quietly desired
In hope, rather than expectation's drive.
There is no sign of you, although your name
Is banded back and forth; so if a few
Seem happy that there is a chance of change,
If all the spoken promises are true,
Perhaps it is enough to count on that
And not expect the miracles to ensue.
Dr Brian Hick summer 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 25.8.23
Wednesday, August 23, 2023
977
It rained after a day of fiercer heat
Than most of us in Hastings can recall-
It seems that summer time is in retreat:
It rained.
Heaving gutters gush with the downfall
Swamping paths and consuming the feet
Of tourists caught in sandals who must trawl
Their sodden baggage, hoping they might meet
A kindly taxi driver still on call
Who will take pity on their sodden state.
It rained.
Dr Brian Hick summer 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 23.8.23
Monday, August 21, 2023
Friday, August 18, 2023
975
The evening light upon the pregnant tide
Breaks up the psychic babble in my head
Easing my soul back into the wide
Expanses of the real which I so dread
Preferring my own thoughts before the sight
You constantly offer. If I had
The slightest understanding that your might,
So enigmatic, could outweigh the trivial and sad
Self-centred contemplation, how I would
Forsake it, follow where you want to lead;
Yet doing so, though I know that I should,
Seems more than this dull brain can now secede.
If only this rare beauty had the power
To cleanse my evening thoughts, like a cold shower.
Dr Brian Hick June 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 18.8.23
Wednesday, August 16, 2023
974
27 June 11 - Westcliff
The tide is out as far as it can be.
The mud flats and the banks that cut across
The estuary emerge to carve the void
Between Westcliff and the terminals
On the southern side. Water skiers
Skim between the warming greys to churn
The edges into sudden banks of light
Quickly sensed and just as quickly gone.
After a day of unexpected heat
The clouds are moving in, and temperatures
Fall back, comfortable, rather than
The endless running sweat of afternoon.
A tanker slides down channel, and the glow
Of evening sunlight calms the after tow.
Dr Brian Hick 27.6.22
©copyright Sally Hick 16.8.23
Monday, August 14, 2023
Friday, August 11, 2023
972
A mist hangs over Wilmington
And the Long Man hides
In history below the Downs
The barrows and the lives
Of men and women who have farmed
These acres since the land
First yielded to the ploughshare
Where wheat and rape now stand.
Before the church, before the yew
These fields were formed to bear
A harvest for the southern folk
Who dwelt and worshipped here.
They cut a cursus from the west
Deep rutted in the turf
Five thousand years before the cross
Meant anything on earth.
And still it sits pointing the way
To the final resting place
Of seers whose insights formed the minds,
The spirits of the race
Who settled here an age ago
Absorbing all who came
Among these hills and sheepy vales,
Still cosseting the flame.
Passed down to us, who've always known
The Long Man watches over
His people on the Southern Downs -
And those who crop his clover.
Dr Brian Hick summer 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 11.8.23
Wednesday, August 9, 2023
969
Jury Service
The process may be public but his law
Is private to the point of secrecy.
How many cases are now in pursuit
Behind the sheltered anonymity
Of panelled rooms, the windowless repose
Where strangers try to grasp the ice-berg tip
Of truth which masses for beyond their sight
Waiting for a witness who might slip
And throw a hint to help them peer into
The murk that lies below the brief exchange
Twixt judge and counsel? How many folk like me
Squat on the jury benches while the range
Of lumpen human sorrow passes by
Which could so easily be you or I?
Dr Brian Hick summer 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 4.3.23
Monday, August 7, 2023
Wednesday, August 2, 2023
968
JURY SERVICE
A good start;
I couldn't work out
The door code
To the Jury Room
Jigsaws, old videos,
Joysticks for computer games:
We're in for a long wait.
It's all gloriously amateur.
The jury are all outsiders, who would never
Normally be in the same building together
Let alone a jury box.
The witnesses and defendant
Don't want to be here and
Are only too keen to get away.
The legal fraternity focus
On Barbados or the Dow Jones.
Only the Ushers are here
For the duration -
And the canteen staff,
Not that we are allowed to mix
With the hoi-poloi down stairs.
The anonymity is strange;
We are important
Because
Nobody knows who we are.
As a writer -
How lovely to note that down -
It feels odd that I can't take
Anything I write out of the court
So any pearls are left
Beneath the bench.
Things I can say
The jury benches in Court 3 are like miserichords;
Once in place we cannot move and perch facing towards
The wigs, defendant, video links, stuck here to listen to
The slow unfolding of a case where we must search what's true
Amidst the jargon and the hints of things that might have been
But now in court, listed infull, seem bloated and obscene.
I hope that these miserichords and our forced meditations
Lead to a truth beyond the facts and point all to salvation.
As the case goes on
All the maggots
Crawl out of the woodwork.
The endless patience of the lawyers
Trying to get objective statements
From the intellectually challenged
Never ceases to amaze.
Paint dries more quickly
Than counsel cross-examining
A vapid witness.
Dr Brian Hick summer 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 2.8.23
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