1348

The fields lie heavy, brown with broken soil,

Skirted by thin hedges and dull trees

That watch the ruttted silence, standing gaunt,

Until their branches mutter in the breeze.

No rats, no rabbits, no birdsong from the sky,

No sign of life, no hint of coming spring,

No cattle out to pasture, no new lambs,

No buds, no green, no insects on the wing

To hint that under all this sense of loss

The future fights to break unto the light;

Each root stabbing down as shoots rise up

Before exploding, ravishing my sight.

While you, who had this planned right from the start

Enjoy the silence of a thankful heart.

Brian Hick March 2014

©copyright Sally Hick 28.3.25

 1346

With the weather so bad, I thought it must be snow,

Those branches lined with blobs of brilliant white

Against the starkness of the bark beneath

Until they shimmered in the early light

And blossom drifted on the morning's breeze.

Surprised, I looked again and caught my breath;

The railway bank was dappled, overcome

By early Spring, as if a lingering death

Had been laughed off and shafts of the unseen sun,

Oozing through the trees, touched some with gold

And warmed each sleeping bud, returning hope

Of rebirth and the end of winter's cold.

So after days of darkness and of doubt

You smile on us with February's rout.

Brian Hick February 2014

©copyright Sally Hick 26.3.25

1347

A  bed

So comfortable

I did not notice.

Brian Hick February 2014

 1345

During the storm the birds had disappeared

But this morning a blue tit fluttered through,

Stopping briefly at the coconut,

Before it dived across the hedge onto

The barren branches of the only tree

Left in our garden.  It soon flew away

But a pair of blackbirds swooped down to the fence

Eyeing the line of seeds, but did not stay.

A sparrow landed, flustered, hesitant

Then two wood pigeons dropped onto the shed

'Til, singly, they pecked their way along the rain

To find the sesame seeds among the bread.

            Spring seems a long way off but this quiet morn

            Life returned with birdsong in the dawn.

Brian Hick February 2014

©copyright Sally Hick 24.3.25

 1344

After a morning's downpour

The dipoles on Firle Beacon

Are silhouetted by the sun

In ever-bluing splendour.

Brian Hick February 2014

©copyright Sally Hick 21.3.25

 1343

Why is it so hard to speak of love?

You'd think that after all these years

Together, as the future nears

With warning of a call to go above,

We'd find it easy to share what we feel;

And yet these thoughts are seldom heard,

Their sentiments, a little word

Too often used for casual appeal

To raise an answer where the heart may be

Less passionate - less truly real -

Than what our silences conceal;

Our hearts secure from what the world can see,

But can't hear - and never will from those

Who know the truth, but keep it hid -

Our secret, one we know will live

Far longer than the gushing tweet or prose

Which pass for love, but vanish with the light.

Our love may not shout out loud

To draw attention from the crowd,

But its flam burns ever true and bright.

Brian Hick February 2014

©copyright Sally Hick 19.3.25

 1342

Late afternoon sun

On the wall above the bed?

No, just a street light.

Brian Hick February 2014

©copyright Sally Hick 17.3.25

 1341

If you said that you no longer loved me

That all that we had shared was gone for good

All memories wiped clean, all pain extinguished

A sterile gap where our love once stood,

How could I endure such mere existence

Alone, deserted, every hope denied, 

Every plan discarded, every action

Futile, as every moment died.

Yet I know that this can never happen

Your love endures despite what I might do

Your love outlasts the upsets and the tantrums

Your love is always there to see me through

And I will love each heart-beat I am given

For everything I know of love - is you.

Brian Hick February 2014

©copyright Sally Hick 15.3.25