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          13 May 2012

When we came here in nineteen-eighty-four

Would we have guessed that twenty-eight years on

We'd only just be trouping out the door

For the last time, and when we are gone

Will memories of these years just disappear?

For this house was never ours, though we thrived

A few year here, as many did before

And many yet may do if it survives.

Memory travels with us, all unaware;

Those tiny fragments of so many days

Known only to ourselves, unless we share

With those who can recall our family ways.

Solstice, birthdays, Sunday lunch with friends

These last forever - such love never ends.

Brian Hick May 2012

©copyright Sally Hick 6.5.24

 Shropshire Hills

The Wrexham and Shrewsbury Line

After the Hastings run and underground

The Wrexham train is manna to the soul.

A gentle easing back, with no more sound

Than coffee cups - real china - and the goal

Of self indulged enjoyment for three hours

Until we get to Shrewsbury - of course

Lunch is served, with beef that overpowers

The senses with its whiskey & pepper sauce

And though we must forgo the chocolate truffle

- which did not arrive in time today -

An apple Danish rectifies the ruffle

We might have felt before we doze away.

          All too soon we have to leave the train

          But be assured - we will be back again.

Brian Hick 2009

©copyright Sally Hick 29.7.22

We share a taxi out past Meole Brace

With a lady from South Africa

Before the Shropshire Hills start to embrace

Our view, and even from inside the car

They smile a welcome home.  Oh, is it just

A sentimental quirk, despite years away

I feel as much at one here as the dust

On any path along the South Downs Way?

The hotel has seen better days but strives

To match the glory of its place among

The woods and outcrops of the steep hillsides

Convincing us that nothing can be wrong.

From our room the Longmynd's just in sight

But that's for tomorrow - so for now, goodnight.

Brian Hick 2009

©copyright Sally HIck 29.7.22

 Thoughts of Home While Abroad

The wine is good, the food is better

              We sit out in the Square

              Privileged and civilised

With more than we could dare

Have dreamed of fifty years ago

              When holidaying here

              We scratched together our small change

For sandwiches and beer.

So why, when everything we have

              Enables us to roam

              Do we sit here disconsolate

And want to be back home?

Brian Hick

©copyright 2021 S Hick

No matter how

Good the music

More than thirty

Minutes on this 

Pew and I lose

The will to live.

Brian Hick

Leaving Toulouse

And so we're sitting here for the last time.

Two years' ago we sat on this same seat;

You drew the fountain while I tried to meet

Your skill and deftness in my bumbling rhyme.

If we were to die as we fly home

Then everything today would be a 'last'

And while I warm to melancholic thoughts

 Approaching death is more than just a vast

plunge into the void, for I must face

The hourly thought that time is running out

And actions planned are probable no more

With mind grown feebler and the bodies rout.

Goudouli ponders, but pigeons do not care;

They drink, fly off and melt into the air.

Brian Hick 2009

©copyright 2021 S Hick