Why?

Why, when I could write anything at all

Do I find myself confined to what is close

Or has just occurred, rather than the world

Of nature or romance, the siren call

Of waves off Beachy Head, the approaching storm

Sliding up the channel on a front

Of startled gulls, the silence of the woods

Behind the lake engulfed in evening calm,

While all the buzzing rubbish of the day

Hums like a cloud of midges in my ear

Recalling the minutiae of waste,

Time frittered and relationships' decay.

          Why should you want to read what I might write

          When I dare hardly let it see the light?

Brian Hick

©copyright Sally Hick 30.9.22

 Antinous

Drowned! How could it be when he would swim

With naiads, raising up his peerless form

To fly before the bringers of the storm

And laugh to see the laurels he would win.

What deity has loved him more than I

And, jealous of my joy, ripped him away

To live eternally where he'll outstay

The very gods themselves, while I must die?

The sun is dark and all the summer's fruits

Are bitter on my tongue, all colours black

That once were rainbowed in his eyes and slack

The bow string in the hunter's hand, pursuit

          Abandoned, for the wounded hart has willed

          Himself to die, who would himself have killed.

Brian Hick September 2008

©copyright Sally Hick 28.9.22

 September Equinox

We thought the walk from Stonegate might be fun

So we parked by the church and donned our boots

Before setting off behind the school en route

For Burwash, and lunch at the Rose and Crown.

We should have realised quite early on

That way-marks seemed to disappear with ease

And comments like the 'left hand of the trees'

Were little help when other signs were gone.

The hedge-less fields, ploughed paths, no-entry signs

All chipped away at early morning calm

Until we had to accept, in some alarm,

That we had lost the route and must resign.

          Plump blackberries, plucked along the way

          Gave little succour to a frustrating day.

Brian Hick Septembe 2008

©copyright Sally Hick 26.9.22

 At last I'm free to choose what'er I will

And all the world is open to my heart;

Now I can throw off the lurking dark

That for so many years has tried to kill

My very soul, which only you have seen

Nurtured by your love since first we met

And carried through the times of silent threat

To both of us, from outside and within,

Until these last few weeks when all that we

Have yearned for, past all hope, that we just might

Eventually, break through into the light

That shone a single candle by the sea.

          When love and silence all the world transcend

          No words need bring this poem to an end.

Brian Hick September 2008

©copyright Sally Hick 23,9,22

 Who could have thought that life could be so good?

When I reached sixty, I felt I was complete

The  youthful drive to struggle and compete

Transformed to a mature adulthood,

But now I'm living in another world

Where every ceature beckons and demands

Attention, every sight and sound commands

That I explore, as nuances unfurl

In details which I missed in all the rush

To grasp the daily turmoil of a job

Which never satisfied and seemed to rob

My mind and grind my spirit into mush.

          No longer driven on an angry mill

          At last I'm free to choose what'ere I will.

Brian Hick September 2008

©copyright Sally Hick 21.9.22

 Pearl

They say you'll never find a pearl inside

An oyster, but I did, and it was large

Enough to set into an antique pin

Which Sally found for it in Brighton's Lanes.

Twelve years ago that was and I have worn

It rarely, thinking it too delecate.

Then, while in Cardiff over last weekend,

It slipped away, unnoticed at the time,

Stolen I expect or maybe simply lost.

For weeks on end it hardly came to mind

Yet now its tiny beauty haunts my thoughts

With sadness, that what meant so much to us

          Is gone, or casually sold on, to leave

          Only these few lines, and we who grieve.

            The Pearl

            I was upset

Because the pearl was lost

          Until I realised

          It was not lost

       But only lost to me.

Brian Hick September 2008

©copyright Sally Hick 19.9.22

 At the Garcon!  (Cardiff Bay)

The sun is dropping and within an hour

Will cast low shadows right across the bay.

We sit upon the terrace, and assay

The boats in rapid flurry to the pier.

A tourist in St David's hotel snaps

Us, though he wouldn't know we're here

Lost in the evening crowd, who sip a beer

Or sit as we, letting the time slip by

Between the courses of the pre-set meal

- Endive Belge et Supreme de Polet -

Idyllic as a holiday should be

But rarely is; a moment snatched, to heal

          The days when there is never time to say

          That in my heart, life always is this way.

Brian Hick September 2008

©copyright Sally Hick 16.9.22