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

 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

 1439

What will be written on my heart

What truths will endure

When all the jostle of this life

And language ae no more;

When conversation and debate,

Invective, boast or prayer

Have run their course, and drifted off

Like smoke, into the air?

What will survive when I am gone

If what I've left in print

Does not reflect what's in my heart,

What I feel and think;

And how can these amorphous words

Ever hope to be

More than a distant mirage

With little that is me?

And will this futile pleading

To try to prove that I

Was more aware of what you were

Before we both should die,

Be enough to overcome

The limits of these words

Which want so much to tell the truth

Yet always seem absurd

When faced with love that reaches out

Beyond the sterile spree

Of words on paper, trusting that

You'll know the best of me.

Brian Hick March 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 16.3.26

 1428

Fifty-four years since that first Valentine -

A nonsense verse because I knew no better -

But time does not encourage the sublime

And words are just as difficult as ever.

Fifty-four years of unexpected love

Tentatively etched as if aftaid

That any moment, like a startled dove,

It might fly off before a word is said.

Fifty-four years of constant mystery,

Delighting in the day-to-day unknown,

Hidden within a lifetimes constancy,

A union which endures to make us one.

We may not be as young as we were then

But our love laughs at time - and says Amen!

Brian Hick 14.2.2015

©copyright Sally Hick 14.2.26

 1418

Morgentraum

A Christmas wedding; the church is all abuzz

With friends who have not been in touch for years

Relatives who hardly ever speak

And youngsters who will soon resort to tears

If they have to wait much longer for the bride

Who comes, at last, allaying maternal fears.

And then before the organ's echoes fade,

It's done, and they are married, to a cheer

From all their friends and soft knowing smiles

Of satisfaction from those who came to hear

Continuation of an ancient rite

Confirming married love from year to year.

The church is silent, only the flowers remain

As witness to love's everlasting flame.

Brian Hick December 2014

©copyright Sally Hick 2.12.25

 Returning late from Tonbridge on the train

The taxi dropped me, sped off, and I stood

Alone beneath the silent autumn sky's

Pinpoint brightness stretched out beyond the woods.

Orion smiled, Auriga curved in joy,

Taurus galloped on towards his foe,

Castor, Pollux, the clustered Pleiades,

Sang and circled, while transfixed below

I wondered why this glory of the night

Seemed just for me, as if the universe

At this brief point in time, was mine alone

And nothing could destroy nor doubt reverse

            The truth I felt so deep within my heart

            That I was loved and love will ne'er depart.

Brian Hick October 2014

©copyright Sally Hick 3.11.25

 1396

I know, and do not worry how I know,

That love outlasts, out shines outflanks them all.

Regardless of the cataracts that fall

Upon us and the world's demonic glow,

Love survives, love overcomes, love grows,

Love bumbles on, love sticks around, love grafts,

Love undermines all wickedness, love laughs,

Love waits until the rest have failed, love knows;

There's nothing that outlasts love's patient joy -

Knowing that eternity is real -

No power on earth has power enough to steal

The truth that love itself is never coy

Faced with barbarity, insult and shame

Love smiles, and looks all evil in the eye

Knowing that true love can never die

For love is ready to accept the blame.

Brian Hick September 2014

©copyright Sally Hick 10.10.25

 1391

I love you, and that's all you need to know,

The trouble is you'd rather not believe

It's that easy, that there are no rules,

No footnotes or appendices to grieve

Or block this quiet gift from me to you.

No matter what you think or how you act,

No matter what you did or thought to do -

No matter that your intellect is wracked

By doubts, confusions and endless attacks -

They'll come to nothing when enraptured by

A love far greater than created time,

Enduring even though your body die;

For unconditional is what I said

Know you are loved and do not question why.

Brian Hick August 2014

©copyright Sally Hick 1.10.25

 1394

No longer at sea

Last year sitting on B deck, apart,

A verse flowed on with unaccustomed ease,

A verse which did not hesitate or tease

Came, not from my mind, but from my heart,

And here, while the unaccustomed sun

Flows across the garden you have grown,

The sweet peas and the roses you have sown,

How glorious to know we are still one.

            10 Sept 2014

Brian Hick 10.9.14 (our wedding anniversary)

©copyright Sally Hick  September 2025

 1369

I will seek you where I know you'll be

Down at the water's edge, beside the sea,

Upon the cliff top, where the morning breeze

Cools the air and drifts towards the trees

Which rest in blossom and your spring's new green

Before summer's joy and those unseen,

Unnoticed moments of continuing life

Inevitably unfolding without strife.

Each tiny atom, or the eternal round,

Reflecting all that is, and all I've found

Searching for you, until you found me,

Touched my heart and set my spirit free;

And here I am, surrounded by your love,

From deep in ocean's depth to heaven above.

Brian Hick July 2014

©copyright Sally Hick 16.8.25

 1296

Love conquers all; well that's what they say,

Though looking round it doesn't quite ring true

With violence and aggression holding sway.

Love conquers all?

But when we are together - me and you -

It seems there is another game in play

Where winning has no part and though a few

Boulders have been strewn along the Way

This love, of fifty years, is ever new,

Unconditional as each dawning day.

Love conquers all.

Brian Hick July 2013

©copyright Sally Hick 21.7.25

 1292

Teach me how to love, as you have done

Since the world first stumbled into life

And consciousness warmed to the morning sun.

Teach me how to love.

Returning love to family and friend

Is easy, but I need to love the one

Who undergoes rejection without end,

Who courts loathing, a propensity to numb

All thoughts of generosity, to rend

Relationships until all hopes succumb.

Teach me how to love.

Brian Hick July 2013

©copyright Sally Hick 9.7.25

I believe this was about the time Brian started working with a charity for the homeless. Sally

 1268

                          Easter 2013

A Song of Love Unknown? Oh, not for me;

My life is filled with all that Love can give.

Love unexpected, Love without a fee,

Love that spends itself so I may live,

Love when anger overcomes my soul,

Love to raise my hopes out of the mire,

Love to cherish, Love to play the fool

Love to seer my spirit with desire,

Love regardless of the final cost,

Love of parent, husband, child and friend,

Love provoked to search for what seems lost,

Love lavished on me without end.

            In everything Your Love has always shone

            Far brighter than the glory of the Sun.

Brian Hick 2013

©copyright Sally Hick 18.4.25

 1343

Why is it so hard to speak of love?

You'd think that after all these years

Together, as the future nears

With warning of a call to go above,

We'd find it easy to share what we feel;

And yet these thoughts are seldom heard,

Their sentiments, a little word

Too often used for casual appeal

To raise an answer where the heart may be

Less passionate - less truly real -

Than what our silences conceal;

Our hearts secure from what the world can see,

But can't hear - and never will from those

Who know the truth, but keep it hid -

Our secret, one we know will live

Far longer than the gushing tweet or prose

Which pass for love, but vanish with the light.

Our love may not shout out loud

To draw attention from the crowd,

But its flam burns ever true and bright.

Brian Hick February 2014

©copyright Sally Hick 19.3.25

 1341

If you said that you no longer loved me

That all that we had shared was gone for good

All memories wiped clean, all pain extinguished

A sterile gap where our love once stood,

How could I endure such mere existence

Alone, deserted, every hope denied, 

Every plan discarded, every action

Futile, as every moment died.

Yet I know that this can never happen

Your love endures despite what I might do

Your love outlasts the upsets and the tantrums

Your love is always there to see me through

And I will love each heart-beat I am given

For everything I know of love - is you.

Brian Hick February 2014

©copyright Sally Hick 15.3.25

 1204

We did not want to go to France

But, since we've returned

Everything seems different.

You probably know why

But I'm confused.

This quiet unforced content

Seems oddly strange.

Normally a holiday might last

A few days, if we're lucky,

Then the clouds return

Reducing every hour to work

And Love to something we recall

But can't enact today.

Slowly we realise

That everything could be

Like this

At peace

At one

Not just when we're away

But now

And all I have to do is to accept

That love has been there

Even when

I feared that it had gone

And I was wrecked;

For love, which came so many years ago

Has never left me, even when I thought

I was alone, and all I had was nought.

Brian Hick September 2012

©copyright Sally Hick 25.7.24

1180

My heart is yours; although some might insist

It's just a pump, we've always known better

And now we've facts the sceptics can't resist.

My heart is yours.

It seems my heart has never been in fetter

To my brain -  assuming that's the gist

Of new research - and what I think is debtor

To those fifty years since we first kissed.

The Age of Reason may have made life neater

But oh how dull if Love were off the list.

My heart is yours.

Brian Hick June 2012

©copyright Sally Hick 10.6.24

 1153

You eased me to this day

Yet I cannot hear your voice;

The words get in the way

Insist there is no choice;

But You do not compel

You simply wait and give

Until my heart, o'erwhelmed,

Knows what it is to live.

Brian Hick May 2012

©copyright Sally Hick 22.4.24

 1118

Psalm

You teach me how to love by loving me,

Speaking to my heart, so that I dare

To answer you - though how can my words be

Enough, which never, ever will come near

The soft immensity of time you give

To any who have found the time to wait.

How can I, in these few years I'll live,

Start to repay the debt upon my slate

Banked through eternity and owed to you,

Who give me life, as if I alone

Mattered, and all that's good and true

Were just for me, though for so long unknown?

            So everything that I can be is yours

            And with creation worships and adores.

Brian Hick February 2012

©copyright Sally Hick 13.2.24

 1117

A carefully drafted poem 

For Valentine's Day 2012

A Haiku for you;

Love, love, love, love, love, love, love,

Love, love, love, love, love!

Brian Hick February 2012

©copyright Sally Hick 12.2.24