1338

After the wind

The rain sets in

Gusting up the channel

Mangling umbrellas

Setting all at odds.

Perhaps

When it has settled

All will be well.

Perhaps.

Brian Hick February 2014

©copyright Sally Hick 28.2.25

 1255

Robin

The branches are still bare

But you sing out

Undaunted,

Knowing better than I

That Spring is here

And though there are few signs

And none upon your branch

Your trust is absolute

That  Spring will come

That warmth and growth will creep

Inevitably

From the solid ground

Until the dead and sodden earth

Is smothered in unbridled green

And every note

Unchanged since this day's frost

Will chortle

You were right.

Brian Hick February 2013

©copyright Sally Hick 26.2.25

 1253

The sun will shine? Storm clouds mask its power.

All the world seems bleak and colourless;

Dull hopes deep beneath refuse to flower.

The sun will shine.

Science and Experience may express

Assurances that life will not be dour

Forever, but the unalloyed excess

Of misery, depression and the sour

Taste of darkness batter and oppress

The chance for light to pierce my blackened tower.

The sun will shine?

1254

I thought this poem

Would be a bright happy one

So please, what went wrong?

Brian Hick February 2013

©copyright Sally Hick 25.2.25

 1252

The day is full of promise, so why not I?

The morning air is crisp, the sky is clear

The sun is pushing through the silhouette

Of winter trees, so why should I fear?

If you are in the sun and in the air,

If nothing can exist without your law,

If everything cell confirms your gift of love,

Why am I still shaken to the core?

Could it be your silence frightens me?

That knowing you are there is not enough;

Those indications of transcendent truth

Are pretty useless living in the rough

And tumble of our daily human lives

As in a moment all the world dissolves

Into a mass of contradiction, wrung

With guilt, adrift, and nothing holds.

For some maybe, faith hangs on by a thread

Hoping you are there, still in control,

While chaos laughs at our naivety

Believing that you over-arch the whole

In some comprehended innocence

Linking quantum leaps to summer rain

Answering all evils with a kiss,

All will be well, for Daddy's home again.

If only - but the silence never ends;

And faith is fragile in the face of facts

Hurled by the rationalist and scientific

To analyse potential god-like acts.

Brian Hick February 2013

©copyright Sally Hick 21.2.25

 1251

What a disaster!

First walk in thirty years where

All the pubs were closed.

Brian Hick February 2013

©copyright Sally Hick February 2025

1250

A gentle morning, bird song in the air

No sound of motorway or distant train;

The stillness of a world without a car.

A gentle morning.

But silent contemplation is in vain

When casual words can cause the mind to flair

Shuffling between ecstasy and pain,

Never resting, never unaware

That any second all that seemed urbane

Could crash into a vortex of despair.

A gentle morning?

Brian Hick February 2013

©copyright Sally Hick 19.2.25

 

 1249

Julian's Sparrow

Little birdy in the tree

Do you see what I can see,

Or is your troubled sight

Oblivious to the coming night?

While you're perched there in the sun

Chirping out to everyone

Does that distant cloud not warn

Of the swift advancing storm?

Are you not afraid that soon

Wrapped in cataclysmic gloom

You may suffer, you may die,

Blighted, though you know not why?

Still you sing on, while I fret

Over things not happened yet,

Over thins that may not be

And my mind is never free

From weight of what I've done

What has been and what's to come,

And while I regurgitate

All the awfulness of fate

Little birdy in the tree

You sing on so prettily

Knowing there's no need to dwell

When God has said all will be well.

Brian Hick February 2013

©copyright Sally Hick 18.2.25

 1337

How many years ago did I sit in

The Orange Tree

While Lucy skated

Waiting with a coffee

Writing verse?

Today I wait while you are visiting

A friend in Bexhill

Sitting in Walkers

At our usual table

Writing this.

Has anything really changed?

Brian Hick February 2014

©copyright  Sally Hick 14.2.25

 1248

Now we know it's you

And all the details of your grizzly death.

We know the hunchback

Was no spiteful Lancastrian lie

And writers in your reign

Speak of your goodness and humanity

We know the change you made

To save the innocent from unjust laws.

But did you dispose

Of two small boys to keep yourself a king?

Your effigy is silent as their graves.

Brian Hick February 2013 (after the discovery  of the body of Richard 111)

©copyright  Sally Hick 12.2.25

 1247

Dammerung

Watery evening clouds

And lemon haze

Have gelled to apricot

Striated bright

Above the skeletal

Late winter trees.

The unseen sun

Warms the last moments

Of the day

Softening memories of

Bitter morning winds.

Ruhe, ruhe, du gott.

Brian Hick February 2013

©copyright Sally Hick 10.2.25

 1246

How wonderful to be a poet, free

To conjure images of beasts and bears,

Juggle words so that they seem to be

Far deeper than the trivial affairs

Of office conversations or txt spk,

Which pass for communion, but snare

Themselves upon our deafness and the bleak

Technologies which ape a show of care.

Some would-be poets can't escape the vice

Of simply writing down what they can see;

No concepts, which sing out like mice,

Untramelled by discrete reality.

            Is there a place for we who draw

            Attention to what others find a bore?

Brian Hick February 2013

©copyright Sally Hick 8.2.25

 1245

Nothing to say, no thoughts upon the page;

Nothing but the blankness of a mind

Befuddled by the comforts of old age.

Nothing to say.

When I was young it wasn't hard to find

Small tyrannies that would make me rage,

My pen denouncing all the snide unkind

Acts so liberally sprinkled, but the stage

Has changed, and routines of retirement bind

My brain within this soporific cage.

Nothing to say.

Brian Hick February 2013

©copyright Sally Hick 5.2.25

 1244  Ode to a Venerable Bear

Ninety today, hip hip hooray!

And we are bound to cheer

Our oldest and our finest,

Our nonagenarian bear!

The Roaring Twenties didn't note

Your birth, but we can see

You sitting there by Margaret,

Both waiting for your tea.

You sat out the Great Depression

In your padded chair

While Margaret played the violin

And led the orchestra.

When airmen came to Shrewsbury

You saw John next door

Call more often than the rest

And it wasn't long before

They were wed and you were packed

Away, but not to mourn,

For in nineteen forty five

A little boy was born

And you became his teddy bear

Or should I say, mine,

For I it was who loved you then

The second in the line.

I mended you, and your red nose

Might seem to prophesy

A love of wine and single malts

Which I can't deny.

Our daughter Lucie, as shown in print,

Won a famous prize

For you, as the oldest bear,

To everyone's surprise,

And now you sit with younger friends

A true celebrity

Gracing our Hastings Week event -

A special Teddy's Tea.

Brian Hick 2013 The venerable bear can be seen illustrated by Prue Theobalds in The Teddy Bear P. 77 with the photo of Margaret when they were young.

©copyright Sally Hick 3.2.25