Friday, November 30, 2018

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

Thursday, November 29, 2018

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)

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

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

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

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)

Monday, November 26, 2018

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

Sunday, November 25, 2018

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

Saturday, November 24, 2018

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 

Friday, November 23, 2018

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

Thursday, November 22, 2018

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

Wednesday, November 21, 2018

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

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

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

Monday, November 19, 2018

Haiku for Day 670


Snow scented wind slides

Shards of blue slice silken clouds

Bare trees remember



(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Sunday, November 18, 2018

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)

Saturday, November 17, 2018

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

Friday, November 16, 2018

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)


Thursday, November 15, 2018

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

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

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


Tuesday, November 13, 2018

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