1295

St. Leonards, July night 2013

Hannah wanted to paddle,

So we did,

Leaving our shoes and socks

Dry on the pebble bank.

A haze of apricot from the late sun

Softened the silhouette of Beachy Head,

Where tiny dots of light

Pricked out the line

Between tidal forces and the shore.

The moon,

Unnoticed earlier,

Had crept into a sudden blaze of light

Reflected on the stillness of the sea,

Until it fractured

In the turning waves

To broken diamonds in the evening's blue.

Even Hannah's chatter

Calmed,

As we stood,

While shingle oozed between our toes

And twilight's calm

Ravished all our woes.

Brian Hick July 2013

©copyright Sally Hick July 2025

Hannah is our granddaughter, then aged 13

 1209

A thousand years ago this twilit scene

Would have stood devoid of points of light

Strung out on the distant coastal path

Until they disappeared far out of sight

And pools left by the tide would sit bereft

Of lighters or Thames barges, waiting for

The sea pulse to return, to float them back

Into the swell they gently road before.

But now the Cliffs Pavilion flashes out

Its neon signs and windows blaze towards

The southern shore, where headlights in the mist

Cut up the deepening night to leave it raw.

Brian Hick September 2012

©copyright Sally Hick 13.8.24

 990

Fossiling

On Chesil Beach the turning tide is clear,

Even the thrash and push cannot conceal

The rolling pebbles underneath the waves

Which churn like jewels in the midsummer sun.

Yet picking up each perfect form they dry

And dull as if removal from that nether world

Of sea and shore, halfway between each,

Yet home to neither - like Schrodinger's cat -

Forces choice and so kills off the life

Which only blossoms when in constant flux

Between the two uncompromising worlds

Gringing against each other to produce

          The perfect smoothness which each pebble knows

          Ensures survival and a beach which grows.

Brian Hick August 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 12.9.23