Unsorted (Day 681)

The unwritten   unwritten

the unpaid   unpaid

the raw   uncooked

beneath a blue-gray blanket 

of clouds  the land settles

broad brown hips 

of hills stalwart 

and voluptuous remain 

unlooked at   unappreciated

a hunger   unfed

clutter unsorted  and I 

out of sorts (like my mail)

take another breath and try 

to begin again 

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Shenandoah National Park

Courtesy US NPS

Like a pearl (Day 680)

Isn’t the sky like a pearl today 

all gray and pink and creamy?

Isn’t the world a dreamy place 

when you forget to think?

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Alan R Light (CC BY 2.0)

Another Page Torn (Day 679)

It was another day 

another foxed page 

torn from a book

shelved in the attic of 

a seldom-visited library

A day as tender 

as my mother’s hand

in mine soft and fragile 

as a tiny gray bird

newly hatched

A day too tough 

to nibble or chew

dry and hard 

as the pigs’ ears 

for which my dog 

begs and yearns 

It was another day

but now it’s done

night drawn about me 

like a shawl comforting 

dark and promising 

a warmer tomorrow

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: PxHere

Winter Lament (678)

December is drawing

the sharp edge 

of its blade 

across an afternoon

gently falling.

Can these be the same trees, 

spindly and dull 

from which 

—last May—a harvest

of birds were calling? 

And this field, uncut

and stunted 

by the cold—

could fireflies have risen, 

blinking, from it, 

just as the rose moon was 

dawning? 

To compare is to invite

sorrow for tea, 

and He is not welcome here.

Still, knowing that somewhere 

a fragrant garden 

is in bloom, a breeze is 

balmy, while one shovels 

snow and ice 

is galling. 

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Ray Hennessey (CC0 1.0)

The nature of things (Day 677)

The nature of things

is to change

their nature.

The way of things

is to go

away. 

So it is okay 

if you want to 

tell me 

goodbye.

It is 

in your nature

to leave. 

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Valerii Tkachenko (CC BY 2.0)

via Wikimedia Commons

A Land He Thought He Knew, Part 2 (Day 676)

Part 2.

Everything about her sang. 

When she walked 

across the red sand, tiny 

bells rang out from her 

ankles, and her hair rippled 

and snapped like sleek grasses 

in the rising wind. His heart

knew the words to her melody, 

and his eyes followed her as she 

went through the rhythm 

of her days, and at night 

his dreams covered her 

like a warm woolen blanket, 

but still, she did not see him. 

How this could be, he tried to 

understand, demanding answers 

from the god he prayed to

—railed at—as he climbed 

those bloody, mountainous dunes. 

To no avail. To her, he was not 

unavailable, nor even off limits. 

No, to her, he was invisible, 

and that was the worst fate of all.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Pexels

A Land He Thought He Knew, Part 1 (Day 675)

On a mission 

to a land he thought 

he knew like the back 

of his hand, where 

he tried to convert those 

whose wisdom predated his 

grandmother’s 

grandmother’s 

grandmother, 

he met a woman 

dressed in a shade of blue 

that reminded him of 

the hyacinths in his mother’s 

jewel-like garden, 

how those tender daggers 

pierced the Earth’s frozen crust, 

striving toward the bounty 

of sunlight entrusted 

upon them by spring… 

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: adapted from a photo by 

fdecomite (CC BY 2.0) via Wikimedia 

Slippery as oil (Day 674)

marvelous reflection, 

slippery as oil—isn’t that 

a sigh? 

on napkins—isn’t it?

the graceful outlines

of their eyes—isn’t that

the way it goes? 

a line, a lingering 

glance, that darting tongue, 

a turn of phrase—remember 

the murdered women 

in those old songs? 

they had always done him

wrong—the anticipation in 
his eyes 
should disqualify him 
from dancing with innocents 
and feasting on their souls

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Children Dancing in a Ring (1872), Hans Thoma

On the side of the hill (Day 673)

On the side of the hill, where 

hundreds of sunflowers had nodded 

and turned their faces toward 

last August’s brilliant golden light—

there, she turned to me, 

and her face was pale as a star, 

falling from the sky into the waiting 

arms of leafless trees, their branches 

straining, reaching upward 

to catch her as she tumbled by, soft 

and weightless as a feather, 

too ethereal to seize,

too temporal to remain aloft.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Landscape at Twilight (1890), Vincent van Gogh,

 oil on canvas, via Wikimedia Commons

Calling It Peace (Day 672)

It is quiet, inside.

We are hiding 

from the noise,

and calling it

peace. We are 

pretending that

the world is not

burning.

Shhh...

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Pixabay

Composed (Day 671)

I gaze  I wander  along 

flowing looping lines

watching them change 

and grow and flutter  until  

persistent  they find a way 

to invade my quietest hours  

even accompanying me 

on night-long journeys 

through a bright clutter

of undreamt dreams

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Pixabay

Haiku for Day 670

Snow scented wind slides

Shards of blue slice silken clouds

Bare trees remember

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Broken Promise (Day 669)

You broke a promise        saying yes 

to yourself  smiling           yes

instead of                            yelling no                     

listening to                         your heart 

the voice within                wise and gentle

who knows you                 seeks the truth

and forgives you               when you are blind to it

you broke a promise        to yourself   rest a bit

it will be ok                        everything will be ok

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Jon Rawlinson (CC BY 2.0)

He is a Hummingbird (Day 668)

Do not misconstrue his inability to say 

what must be said. It’s not his fault, 

you know. He is a hummingbird, 

buzzing from one dangling plastic 

container to the next, always hoping 

someone remembered to refill that

lurid nectar on which his life depends.

© 2018, by Hannah Six

Image via Wikimedia Commons

Wet Snow (667)

yes no wet snow yes between 

my toes sand fingers 

linger waves toss a gray 

and restless sea to see 

across those waves 

a sunrise waits for me 

across those waves of yes I 

float the sun orange tide 

high float and ride a restless 

yes a heaving in between 

flowing unseen west glancing 

yes no rising sunlight circles 

dancing on my unseen sky

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Shaheen Karolia (CC BY 2.0)

Not Seeing (Day 666)

Not seeing   not hearing 

   self-induced 

smokescreen   but truth 

   still seeps in 

around the edges

   wedging its way 

past my not wanting

   to know.  

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: MaxPixel

Twilight’s Edge (Day 665)

Raindrops stitch  

a sodden sky

Imperceptibly, gray 

shifts to blue

Lifting the corner 

of twilight

To see what lies below 

its velvet edge

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Rhumba (Day 664)

man dances  rhumba 

hand on the waist

of an invisible partner 

she has not been easy 

to lead  relentless birdlike 

interest quick and sharp 

turning and twisting in his 

arms  glancing at her own 

feet to assure herself 

she will not be carried 

away  working furiously 

at the tragic melange  

she enjoys  never being 

asked to dance  with him 

or any man  he finds it funny  

he’d believed she could  

apparently  he was wrong

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Vernon and Irene Castle, 

by Frances Benjamin Johnston