1454

Firle 2 5 15

Rain clouds drift across the beacon's head

Greying the damp spring fields, softening skies

As if muslin veils enshroud the Downs

Keeping them snug within a gentle void.

The dipoles and the ridge path where we walk

Have disappeared and even closer to

Swallows swoop then vanish from my sight,

Sheep rest, blurred against the misted hedge.

The train is quiet, a distant mobile call

Alone breaking the rhythm of the wheels.

Empty stations pass unnoticed till

The downs are gone and placid to the south

The sea yawns as the evening closes in.

Brian Hick 2.5.15

©copyright Sally Hick 21.4.26

 1435

Ditchling Beacon

I am not dressed for walking on the Downs

But having time between this morning's church

And listening to Sibelius at the Dome

Here I am - battered by the wind,

Stepping round the mud and boggy ruts

Heading up toward the Beacon's top.

A flock of sheep shelter as they crop

Downwind of a scrubby hedge which cuts

Across the open downland till it finds

The South Downs Way - but I must turn back home,

Or rather to the car park - while I search

For meaning in these moments on the Downs;

But who needs meaning when earth and sky above

Are one with me rejoicing in your love.

(Jung: I do not need to believe - I know.)

Brian Hick March 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 6.3.26

 1188 Isle of Wight - various oddments (2)

Six empty tables between me and a family munching burgers

Then the window across the Duver, houses half hidden by trees

Grey and distant the open downs, where I would rather be than here

Oh anywhere than here

And why? It makes no sense for you are here as much as you are there

But I'm not here when my heart aches to be there on that distant hill

alone with you and the wind...

Brian Hick July 2012

©copyright Sally Hick 20.6.24

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

 

 I do not want to write this for the Spring

Is glorying the fields around the train.

Erupting greenery fills out the gaps

Between the hedges and last night's gentle rain

Has polished all the surfaces to gold.

Leafless trees, expectant, seem to know

Another week and every silent twig

Will smile with tiny buds, where once was snow.

Occasional veils of mist pretend that sleep

Can last for ever, but Sussex sheep were born

Cropping off the frost to help the sun

Imbrue creation with this glorious dawn.

           Wordsworth's welcome to Westminster Bridge

           These Sussex hills are where I'd rather live.

Brian Hick 16.3.09

©copyright Sally Hick 4.3.22