1146

Friday

Jesus was dead - the soldiers made that certain.

They wouldn't let a criminal survive

Particularly a nasty trouble maker

Who claimed to be a King whilst still alive.

And so they broke the legs of the survivors

To finish them off before the sunset's glow

Then handed all three bodies on for burial

To anybody willing to do so.

But then all hell broke loose after the Sabbath.

The tomb was empty everybody said

Even the priests who'd set a guard upon it

And wanted him kept well and truly dead.

Rational thought can bring a thousand reasons

And Science knows the way things ought to be

But neither law nor logic seem convincing

For what went on at Easter Thirty-Three.

Brian Hick April 2012

©copyright Sally Hick 29.3.24

 1145

If you are me and there is nothing else

If you are me and nothing is not we

Why should I fear, or doubt your gentle care

When all that is exists that we might be.

I do not mind that time limits my thinking

And that soon this mind will cease to be

For I was present before time existed

And will be present, with you, when we are free

Of all the shackles of temporal thought or being

Of all the words which try to pin us down

Only then, when all has ceased to struggle

Shall unity laugh at the victor's crown.

Brian Hick March 2012

©copyright Sally Hick 28.3.24

 1144

Psalm

I love your silence

And the way you smile

When I rave and curse

Demanding you act now

Saying you don't care

You never listen,

When all the time

If only I would stop

For just one second

Your silence would speak worlds

And in the flow

The heat would melt away

And I would grow.

Brian Hick March 2012

©copyright Sally Hick 26.3.24

 1143

The owl, unseen, sweeps silent on the vole;

The cat sneaks up upon the baby bird;

The tied dog howls into the coming dawn;

The brown rat scutters darkly and unheard;

Each one happy, living in the now,

Oblivious to death which lurks unreckoned

A breath away, yet cannot terrify

Where minds are focussed only this second.

          But human minds fret endelessly between

          The faulted past and the furtive void

          Knowing failure cannot be restored

          Or coming challenges, by thought, ignored.

          So we endure the present as we are toyed

          By Time which does not care to intervene.

Brian Hick March 2012

©copyright Sally Hick 25.3.24

 1142

Dilemma

The pint is nearly empty:

I do not need another;

I do not want to leave.

Brian Hick March 2012

©copyright Sally Hick 22.3.24

 1141

The White Rock Terrace;

Sun and a pint of cider;

Human happiness.

Brian Hick March 2012

©copyright Sally Hick 21.3.24

 1140

My first pint of cider of the year

On the terrace outside the White Rock

In heat, which would be suspect in July,

Unheard of in March and yet the shock

Is welcome - everyone I meet is happy.

Bands of students strolling by the beach

can't believe their luck, as they have heard

It always rains in England, and can reach

Minus three at Easter - but I digress;

Sitting here - it doesn't get much better.

Over twenty years this seat has gone

From somewhere to lurk while taxiing the children

To a poet's muse where sea and sky

Merge with the cider and the perfect I.

Brian Hick March 2012

©copyright Sally Hick 20.3.24