1355

Southbank 29.3.14

Where are you in all this din -

            All the crowds who push and shove

            No time for manners, less for love -

No chance to see where we begin

To sense that life is more than speed

            More than early morning meetings,

            Faster food, half-hearted greetings,

More than work, the grasp, the greed.

Yet, if you are ever present,

            Ever wakeful at my side,

            I don't need the turning tide,

The gentle dawn or midnight's crescent,

To rekindle thoughts of praise,

            To illuminate my day

            And set me back upon the Way

For, even in chaos, you raise

My soul, to know that you are here,

            Within the cities beating heart,

            In every building, every part,

As close as whispered bedtime prayer.

Brian Hick 29.3.14

©copyright Sally Hick 31.5.25

 1277

What do you want to be, they always ask

As if I should know, now I was five,

Off to school, childhood in the past.

What do you want to be?

The trouble was I never did decide,

Doing what came along, tied to a mast

Of amiable pleasantries which hide

A hope that sometime within all the vast

Silent span, I'll hear your voice rise

Siren-like, to fire my soul at last.

What do you want to be?

Brian Hick May 2013

©copyright Sally Hick 26.5.13

 1276

Handel from the organ;

A hum of voices across the church.

I sit, once more,

Trusting you are here

Hoping, as each Sunday comes around,

That even if I do not hear your voice

In the silence of this time

That promised peace

Will speak through everything

Filing this moment

And the week ahead

With more than music's joy.

Brian Hick May 2013

©copyright Sally Hick 24.5.25

 1275

Call yourself a writer?

Where's the proof?

Or does it simply mean

There's not one thought

One flash of inspiration

In all this time

That might be worth recall,

If only by yourself,

When all the dross of life

Is heaped on your forgetting?

Is your life so shallow

That each hour brings you nothing;

As if, an aging sloth,

You grope from this to that,

Unconscious of the outcome,

Unaware of what has been

Or might be, just because

You acted as you did?

Meanwhile the thinking never stops;

Words whirl incessant,

Uncontrolled, irrational,

Far beyond all hope

Of pinning down

Each specimen

Before it flutters, wounded, off to die.

Brian Hick April 2013

©copyright Sally Hick 23,5,25

 1273

        How did they know?

    I was twenty minutes late,

       I walked in, sat down;

They walked in, started playing.

         But it was the Elgar

           I just got lucky.

Brian Hick May 2013

©copyright Sally Hick 19.5.24

 1272

I'm up to date, so why do I feel confused.

As if there's something lurking out of sight,

That little something, leaving me bemused

Because it hints that everything's not right.

Perhaps it's always been like this, for when

I try to recall what I have done

Only failures float back up again,

Embarrassments, and not a hint of fun,

Which surely must have been part of my life

And yet it's missing from my memory,

Wiped out by depression's endless strife,

Cancelled by a faceless enemy.

            If you can wind the clock to show me more

            How easy then to worship and adore.

Brian Hick May 2013

©copyright Sally Hick 17.5.25

 1271

At a funeral

What am I doing here? No, don't laugh,

Although I wouldn't blame you if you did.

Ninety minutes on, I'm none the wiser

And all the endless verbiage could not rid

The doubts which bubble up and make me dread

The platitudes, the clichés and the Kant

Washing around this refuge for the dead

Where those who long ago abandoned thought

Of faith, of hope, of spiritual insight

Fall back into the stark familiar forms

Ignoring the beliefs which lead to life.

            You deserve much more and this limp praise

            Insults your memory and your loving ways.

Brian Hick May 2013

©copyright Sally Hick 14.5.25

 1270

And still it snows, with no end in sight;

Day after day, wind battered, in despair

Of the Spring's return or the sun's light.

And still it snows.

A robin challenges the morning air

Telling me, of course, that he is right,

All will be well and I should not care

Just because it's cold and that it might

Linger on until late May or more

Before we see the end of this dark night.

And still it snows.

Brian Hick spring 2013

©copyright Sally Hick 10.5.25

 1269

So now that Easter's over

And the year stretches out before us

What have we to hope for,

Given that we tend

To veer between the dull

And gross absurdity?

Can we look towards

A deeper sense of understanding

More sensitive insight

Or perhaps of feelings less intense,

Accepting that we are not always right?

Unfortunately, I suspect

There's no likelihood of change

And twelve months on

Each problem that we have today

Will grow a new face,

While no one of them has gone;

And resurrection's joy, for which we sought,

Lie broken with the chocolate eggs we bought.

Brian Hick May 2013

©copyright Sally Hick 5.5.25

 1267

Why is it so difficult to say

Thank You, when you answer all my prayers?

For days I've moaned about your endless silence,

Bound up with depression and old cares,

But now, within this hour, you've sorted out

All the things I've thrown at you, as if

You've been so close I hardly needed think

Before you'd lavished on me every gift

Necessary to ensure that all

That I had asked has fallen into place -

With more - to quietly confirm that you

Have been there all the time and I was safe.

            I fly beneath the shelter of your wings

            Where Love alone such joy and bounty brings.

Brian Hick March 2013

©copyright Sally Hick 3.5.25