1484

Our garden's at it's best at Lammastide.

The burst of Spring has eased itself away

The hectic Summer growth has settled down

The beds are mellow, softened at the edge,

Colours calm yet eager to entice

A drone of bees and pairs of butterflies.

The pond lies empty, even the late frogs

Have disappeared into the undergrowth.

Our daily visitors peck casually at the grain

Or sit atop the fence to bask away

Untroubled moments in the teatime sun.

Sweet peas and hollyhocks try to outshine

The runner beans, the sun flowers by the fence.

A pair of cabbage whites dance near my head

Oblivious to my presence and delight.

            I sit untroubled, resting in the peace

            Which, like your love, I know need never cease.

Brian Hick August 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 20.7.26

 1483

A waiting room at the Eye Clinic

A child crying incessantly in A&E next door

A forty five minute delay

A silence between phone calls

A stream of names called out for treatment

A gradual emptying out

A check to see who's left

A wait

A distant voice drifting to the empty chairs

A doctor says goodnight

A cleaner empties the bins

Brian Hick August 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 10.7.26

 1482

Your Birthday crept up like the morning mist

Rolling in across a silent sea -

At  first unnoticed, yet so fine it closed

About us, and now everything must be

In place, precise, ready to celebrate

Another year of grace - another year

Of subtle change - as all around evolves

While we, seemingly ageless, still appear

Untouched by time, events or circumstance -

As young at heart as were erstwhile,

Before the internet or mobile phone,

When simpler things could cause us both to smile,

            When silence said far more than 'I love you'

            And closeness, more than words could ever do.

Brian Hick August 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 8.7.26

 1481

Thoughts from the Isle of Wight

A sudden shower, we dive into the tea room,

But it soon stops and sun breaks though the clouds;

The guide is telling children of lemurs

Gibbons, squirrel monkeys and meercats

While fathers fret the lack of internet

And mothers sort out snacks and fizzy drinks.

The park is pleasant, wide vistas and the space

To wander round the enclosures where the apes

Sit and eat, or spa in mock aggression

Till, on an instant, they stop and scratch, before

Carefully picking out and eating fleas,

Owls in single cages sit and wait

For closing time when moonlight will entice

Small rodents to erupt across the floor,

Unsuspecting snacks for eagle eyes

Alert to every movement way below.

Close by, the Garlic Farm sits on a site

Which has been tilled for close three thousand years,

First families on the Isle grew wheat and sheep

Roamed across the downlands to the sea.

Swallows skim across the fields which held

The villages and homes of settlers

Arriving long before Roman or Celt

Their thoughts and language close beyond the sight

Of standing stone or barrow on the height,

I hear grasshoppers somewhere near my feet

And cabbage whites hover along the runs

Of wild flowers lingering below the hedge.

Clouds may darken distant hills but here

The dappled sunlight smiles upon the land

And all is happy in the drowsy heat.

And you?  Where are you in all of this?

The clichés of the summer indicate

That all is well within this rural world

Dedicated to the visitor

Or passing tourist, content to spend their time

Within the showers of an August day.

Last year's temperatures eased out the thought

And for a moment we could simply hope

Heat might become the norm for holidays

But here it rains enough that we recall

Summer's always been a fickle friend.

So do we complain and blame you for

The changes we experience hour by hour,

The sudden flash of sunlight or downpour

Between the passing clouds and chilly eves?

We could, but it would be a waste of time

Frustrating for ourselves and not a wit

Effective to ameliorate the wash

Conflicting passions pummel at our brains

When all we really need is to accept

That what is, is, and then let it rest

Knowing your love's working for the best.

Brian Hick August 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 1.7.26

 1480

Pompey

And once more

That Pizza Express

Moment.

But,

Will this

Ever be

As Valuable

As a few lines

By Picasso?

One thing I do know

This won't pay the bill.

Brian Hick July 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 29.6.26

The Pizza Express moment occurred while waiting for the next course, with the extra napkin enticing Brian to write something on it. Sally

 1479

We are surrounded

By children on holiday

All making a din.

Brian Hick July 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 27.6.26

 1478

Children's voices playing in the tide,

Cut the endless pulsing of the waves.

A  solitary gull rests on the air.

Grey clouds gather in the south

Threatening rain even as we sit

Waiting in the sunlight.

Tea and cake entice a red squirrel

And our table turns

Into a photo opportunity for passing tourists.

On Victoria's private beach the sun

Briefly warms us, then moves north

Exposing the brilliance of a sail

A flash of Spinnaker.

Brian Hick June 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 24.6.26

 1477

I wait until the train's announcement stops

When only the tap of laptops and the click

Of iphones can excuse the hesitation

Before the first ideas begin to tick.

But words lie scrambled somewhere in my brain

And only as they spill out on the page

Shaping themselves into familiar forms

Can I begin to see what they might mean.

Six lines to go after the first quatrains;

The end's in sight and now I must display

A pithy couplet to ensure the tag

Will capture all I really wan to say.

            There, it is finished, but I doubt you'll find

            Any hint of  what's deep in my mind.

This poem is about nothing;

Writing poems is easy -

Saying something is hard.

Brian Hick June 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 22.6.26

 1476

For you are here - felt it from the start

Even though the gale which broke the day

Came near to tearing us apart -

for you are here.

At first I thought you were too far away

And I'd be left in silence and alone

Until your gentle cloud of love held sway

Enfolding me, allowing me to hone

A listening heart, receptive to the way

That leads me to yourself - and we are one

For you are here.

Brian Hick June 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 20.6.26

 1475

The pigeons and the squirrels get along.

Below the garden wall a young squirrel

Forages for seeds

Stopping when she finds one

Alert to any competition

Then

On hind legs

Sits and eats.

A lazy wood-pigeon

Waddles down the path

Pecking aimlessly at anything

Which comes in view,

Back to back

They ignore each other

Only concerned when foreigners -

Magpies casing the garden

Humans putting out seed -

Interrupt their placid

Acceptance

At which point they disappear

But not for long

Having more in common

Than we with them.

Brian Hick June 2016

©copyright Sally Hick 17.6.26

 1474

Budget

Apart from the one in London

They have a house in France

A home in Grindelwald

All big - so everyone can congregate.

On the day the poor were

Smashed, income decimated

And those without

Promised less.

How can I do this and not feel guilty?

How can I be giving up the fight?

While I am drinking Pimms and eating Salmon

The country's poor are sinking out of sight.

A   Budget which has ripped the heart from families

Who up to now have just about survived

But take away all benefit and succour

And how are any of them now to live?

But carryon! Don't worry for the people

The champagne dregs are bound to trickle down

Or better still if IT takes their places

We're shot of them for ever - thank the Lord.

Brian Hick June 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 15.6.26

 1473

Today I am a

Real commuter with coffee

And croissant in hand.

Brian Hick June 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 12.6.26

 1472

How much do I love you?

             No, not  you, the Divine

But those much closer to me

             My own kith and kin.

How much do I love you?

             Let me show the way

Not in high-flown language

             But the everyday

Where words are not the only

             Way to let you know

All you've ever meant to me

             Watching as you grow

From child to ratty teenager

             From youth to adulthood

Caring for you day by day

             Regardless of your mood.

For love is not a flowering

Of sentimental verse

A birthday card with bunny rabbits

Pussy cats - or worse -

But midnight listening on the stairs

             A waiting by the door

When you were sick or out with friends

             Fearing the worse before

You recover or breeze in

             Oblivious to me

Shoot up the stairs, without a word,

             Or make a cup of tea.

And all the time the love that binds

             Us to one another

Has hidden in the crevices

             Of sister, mother, brother.

Our reservation at excess

             Refusal to emote

May seem off-hand to the world

             Uncaring or remote,

But we know what we really feel

             Deep within our heart

For love that does not need to shout,

             Enduring from the start,

Will far outlast the extrovert

             The banner high unfurled;

For love that does not flaunt itself

             Has overcome the world.

Brian Hick June 2015

©Sally Hick 8.6.26

 1471

There are no rules in Poetry

The trendy teacher said

So all the children wrote a poem

Which had no form or structure

And simply dribbled on

Until it stopped.

If poetry has no rules

When does it stop being pros?

Brian Hick June 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 6.4.26

 1470

Mushrooms

Trays and trays upon a Tesco shelf

Identical in size and number

Perfect forms, perfect condition

And yet

The sell-by date tells us that in a while

Crisp bodies will turn soft

Oozing to repugnant sludge;

Wasted.

No resurrection here.

Brian Hick June 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 4.6.26

 1469

Where once the Drove Road ambled to the coast

To ship the lambs to London and the west

It peters out in terraces and lanes

Suburbanised with Chardonnay and toast.

No shepherds lead their flock across the Downs,

No lambs gambol slowly to the sea;

The sheep are segregated from the road

Which seers its croncrete way into the ground,

And though the seasons keep their wonted place

Rolling on impervious to change

The Downs lie silent underneath the roar

Of Tesco lorries angling to displace

The peace that you created at the start

To resonate within each loving heart.

Brian Hick May 2016

©copyright Sally Hick 30.5.26

 1468

Five years ago these notebooks all were full

Of poems and the comments in between

Far less substantial than the teaming verse;

But now creative notions are more lean

With pages full of meetings and the terse

Reflections on directives, new reports

On better ways of filling up our time -

As if that really mattered - when the curse

Of work is draining all the daily joy

Which comes from letting new ideas flow

And writing for its own sake seems to pale

Before the need to let the minutes grow.

            So I write this in hope for better days

            When verse won't need excuse to sing your praise.

Brian Hick June 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 25.5.26

 1467

Solstice

From this high point the cycle starts again

Little by little the sun will drift away

Until the darkness and the cold

Win out against the brightness of the day

But through all the cycles of the year

Your love is constant, like the ebbing seas

Which seem impervious to the length of days

Moved by a higher force than storm or breeze

And while we vacillate, emotions tossed

By every fashion, every casual word,

Your silence speaks eternity

Wherever it is heard.

Brian Hick June 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 22.5.26

 1466

Solstice; though clouds now hide the sun

Dawn winds rumbling through Gillsman's Wood

Muffle the chorus which has just begun.

Solstice

And I've decided, as I knew I must,

To move away from deadlines, to run

The race that raises me from out the dust

To fly unhindered until they are gone

The hypoctrites, the cynics, the unjust,

Who dare come between me and the One,

Solstice,

Brian Hick June 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 20.5.26

 1465

A week to Solstice

Evening light survives

As if the sun cannot let go

The land she loves

And dares not sink

Save for a brief respite

The coolness of the night

A silence in the trees

Snoring from open windows

Soft pad of foxes in the dark

Brian Hick June 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 18.5.26