Winter Weather

It's daylight now when I leave for the train

And only a thin scarf is needed for

The walk down to the station, yet before,

We get to Crowhurst, we've ground to a halt again.

This time it's ice on the conductor rail.

Tension rises, mobile phones snap out

'Tell Matthew I'll be late.' 'Who's not about?'

'Is Catherine there?' 'God, this makes my blood boil....'

Two weeks ago in Prague we had thick snow

With temperatures of minus ten below

Yet everything is working, all the streets

Are safe, the buses, trams and trains abound,

Tourists fill the squares, and all around

The cities unstressed heart, contented, beats.

Brian Hick 21.1.09

©copyright Sally Hick January 2022

 The Infant of Prague

'It's just a dressed up dolly,' you insist,

But I sense there might be another way,

Behind the baroque gold and statuary,

To read the tiny figure in the dress.

The deity above with pointed finger

Scowling at us all, as if he knows

We are all wicked and will come to blows

Left to ourselves, is light years from the figure

In the case, whose vulnerability

And child-like innocence can offer only love,

Untainted by desire, and above

The greedy factions of authority.

            It may just be a dolly, but I'd rather

            See the world through those eyes, than the other,

Brian Hick 18.1.09

©copyright S Hick January 2022

 Prague  Winter

A silent call to freedom

Fills the city, like the snow

Which lifts and swirls around us

As we walk its quiet streets.

Mute memorials, unremarked

By tourists, draw

My mind -

Jan Hus, pencil thin

And gaunt above

A mound of terror;

Jan Palach's cross

So small it almost vanishes

Within the bushes on the

Central reservation

Atop Wenceslaus Square.

And in between, a calm

Acceptance that

Whenever history tries to burn us out

Bohemians know that Love and Truth must shout.

Brian Hick 8.1.09

©copyright S Hick 2022

On visiting Prague in 2009 for the winter festival

                Here I

           Need no pills or

Potions for my stomach ulcer,

     No psycho chat to break

          Depression's grip,

                      For

    Ice-bound Prague brings

             Mental detox

                 With its

            Silent snows. 

Brian Hick January 2009

©copyright S Hick 2022