1279
I stood and watched a ewe give birth today;
Easily, her lamb slipped into life,
A twin, standing pristine, while she lay
Breathing softly, blooded, but the strife
Of transference, the time before the knife,
Hung easily, as though a benign earth
Held close reality, a silent midwife
Cosseting a child against the dearth
Of gentle dignity, which would deny it worth.
O looked up but saw no shepherd was in sight
No human hand had guided this gestation.
A ewe's instinct, an afternoon of bright
Spring sunshine, a meadow's germination
Out ran any human intervention,
Where silent nature, seeded to ensure
Another life, another generation,
Led the ewe to wash the lamb she bore
Then slowly turn to graze, as she had done before.
Between the blood of birth and sudden death
How little time to contemplate and dream.
No sooner on your feet than your life's breath
Is scattered to the elements, the gleam
Of promise, as your mother washed you clean,
Will vanish even quicker than my own
And all the hopes of youth, which now seem
Everything, be flushed away unknown
Long before you or I have time to sense we've grown.
Brian Hick May 2013
©copyright Sally Hick 9.6.25
1278
Feed my sheep; so that's what Peter did.
No time to worry over heresy,
Nor set down creeds; just do as he was bid.
Feed my sheep.
But we live beside a different sea,
Muddied by long centuries of pain,
Stark disillusion, death and apathy,
Where faith becomes a weapon for the vain,
Crushing hope, disabling empathy,
Until Love is sewered with the rain,
Feed my sheep.
Brian Hick June 2013
©copyright Sally Hick 6.6.25
1358
If I must be a sheep let me be Shaun!
Not some dull ewe, out grazing in the rain
Tupped twice a year till the next lambs are born
Then doing - again and again
Until it's time to greet the butcher's axe
Dividing leg from best end, Barnsley chops,
Honey-basted, minted, ribs in stacks,
Each living sinew packaged for the shops.
I'd like to think my mind was worth something,
A consciousness, a personality
That had some value, individual worth,
Rather than some atoms set to be
Reformulated as a rock or tree
With nothing left of what once was me.
Brian Hick May 2014
©copyright Sally Hick 4.6.25
1357
I've tried to ignore, but now you shout
"It really will not do, enough's enough;
What is it the you do not understand?
Or are you simply stupid, letting rough
Times weigh you down - as if you were alone -
Not sheltered by my love when things get tough,I
Safe beneath my wings, held in my hands,
Guarded from assault and sin's demands."
"But then of course you only think of me
When you're in trouble, or the way ahead
Is complex and the paths not clear to see;
As if, made in my image, your big head
Will solve it all - while I yearn to be
Salvation, from the darkness that you dread."
Brian Hick May 2014
©copyright Sally Hick 3.6.25
