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Southbank 29.3.14

Where are you in all this din -

            All the crowds who push and shove

            No time for manners, less for love -

No chance to see where we begin

To sense that life is more than speed

            More than early morning meetings,

            Faster food, half-hearted greetings,

More than work, the grasp, the greed.

Yet, if you are ever present,

            Ever wakeful at my side,

            I don't need the turning tide,

The gentle dawn or midnight's crescent,

To rekindle thoughts of praise,

            To illuminate my day

            And set me back upon the Way

For, even in chaos, you raise

My soul, to know that you are here,

            Within the cities beating heart,

            In every building, every part,

As close as whispered bedtime prayer.

Brian Hick 29.3.14

©copyright Sally Hick 31.5.25

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If I had brought an I-pad for the trip,

Instead of looking calmly at the view,

I'd be finding lots of things to do

Like reading emails, surfing, letting rip

While scanning page by page things I don't need,

Celebrities of whom I've never heard,

Scandals from every corner of the world,

None of it worth the time it takes to read.

So here I am, the only one in sight,

Looking, listening to what is here

Rather than entranced, from ear to ear,

By thumping bass-lines, or the warlords' fight.

How odd to find myself alone, again;

The only one who knows he's on a train.

Brian Hick January 2013

©copyright Sally Hick 17.1.25