Languid whorls of steam
Honey-drizzled summer scents
Eyes closed, breathe and sigh
Winter’s edge gives way to spring
Time travel in a teacup
(c) 2019, by Hannah Six
Image: Mary Cassatt, Afternoon Tea Party (1891),
drypoint, aquatint, gold paint (print)
we splashed in puddles
of sunlight pools
deep as Sunday night
frowned at starfish stranded
by the tide brittle as hopes
abandoned wishes unwished
yearned to touch to trace
with trailing fingertips
the steady breath of clouds
coquettes so near
so sweet and out of reach
long past the cares of dreams
dreams of thunder racing
over waves surface longing
for lightning’s serpent strike
and then midsummer twilight
how it rose blue
as velvet curtains and as soft
dousing the flames
still smoldering like dragons
in the west
(c) 2019, by Hannah Six
Remember those you leave
stung by a wind like dirty snow
that tears away the end
of your warm life row by row
you knit that strange skein
unwinding comforting
as fall’s remaining leaves
their spice carried on the air
red and gold confetti long after
you melt into a slow mist
rolling high among your dark hills
where ancient landscapes speak
words long forgotten and curious
children walk toward goodbye
(c) 2019, by Hannah Six
Image: Shrewdcat (CC BY-SA 3.0)
I clenched my hand
and the light changed
illuminating a moment
of carefree domesticity
too insubstantial to linger
in this raucous world
a cloud shifted and
the memory faded too
easily slipping between
my fingers leaving behind
only a transient imprint
of drifting white sand
(c) 2019, by Hannah Six
Image: Ybratcher (CC BY-SA 4.0)
via Wikimedia Commons
even when you don’t feel
like singing along you only have to
imagine the melody to know
those words their perfect cadence
tattooed on your heart resonating
in your bones a part of you
now and every year
around this time you will hear them
like a hymn again and again
(c) 2019, by Hannah Six
Image: PxHere
I am the new moon’s razor edge
be careful
the beguiling coral fire that burns
at dawn
you know what they say
when something luscious calls
you’ll hear my whisper
close your eyes now step aside
the sidewalks slowly empty
your blood bright as the morning sky
speaks my name
a storm rises with a few words
the work is done no tears no regrets
it is my way and yet
somehow I miss you all the same
(c) 2019, by Hannah Six
U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Charles White
One more tiny paper parasol,
perched, a paper bird
of paradise, papaya memories,
mellow and salty
as a thousand yesterdays
one more toast
to a ghost-peopled world, where
fathomless teal pools of regrets
shimmer beneath the shaded gaze
of those who refuse
one more, because
the tracks extend for miles
under a blanket of snow, spread
smooth as false friends pretending
to like what others despise
one more stand
of stern pines balking, bowed
branches tipped delicately,
choosing, not choosing, swaying
like a song, barely discernible,
over the playa
one more flock
wings beating south-by-south-east
where no one remembers how,
that year, the storms fell,
quick and bitter as green fruit
(c) 2019, by Hannah Six
Image: Winslow Homer, Hurricane, Bahamas (1898),
watercolor and graphite on wove paper, via Wikimedia
Yesterday we sipped summer
warmth barely gold at the edges
while a cerulean wash of sky
fluttered above faces tilted
to catch the last drop of light
Once aqueous green the woods
have gone transparent bare
branches scraped clean by
an icy wind blankets of leaves
heaped at the foot of every tree
Today we opened our eyes to
a gray world hills and steeples
of distant churches crunching
as we walked under the round
shoulders of ancient hills
(c) 2019, by Hannah Six
Image: PeakPx
Found (Day 1035)
He found her where
he left her | they met
waves beating sandstone cliffs
into submission
that long walk
in the dark
they found their way
talking laughing sleeping
under a warm holiday sky
they were lost
feeling their way
through eternal twilight
dim & blue
footprints trailing
across frosted grass
across a ballroom floor
& the long strip
of damp brown sand
like breadcrumbs they led him
back to where
he left her | they met
he found her
facing a gray & rolling sea
he found her: there
(c) 2019, by Hannah Six
trees soften and quake
rustling like water
over a pebbled riverbed
sunlight bends toward the east
slender blue shadows wander
into darkness again
yet all is the same
words fall like leaves
yet nothing changes
(c) 2019, by Hannah Six
Image: www.ForestWander.com (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Somewhere over Omaha she said goodbye
clouds jostling shouldering their way
into a gradient blue the pilot’s warm-honey voice
bathing the cabin in reassuring trivia
legs stretched out straddling carry-on bags
wings slicing through a continent’s worth of thin sky
wind ripples nosing the plane southward
where everyday lives unfolded in love and toil and grief
and families ate together or apart and friends toasted
another Friday evening and first kisses were kissed
and hearts were bruised it happened
she said goodbye twilight riding hard upon their tail
without speaking somewhere over Omaha
(c) 2019, by Hannah Six
Image: US Library of Congress
on the counter tapping
wafting steam scents sizzling
sunbright time-slatted window
onto the street a stage black
and red navy charcoal
uniform uniforms surging
tides ebb and flood breakfast
lunch dinner not so much
they come and come again
waiting condensation puddles
slap the bill down there
on the counter tapping
(c) 2019, by Hannah Six
Image: Deansfax
A remembered fog
raged and roiled like the sea
tires on the verge
hugging empty curves
wind bellowing mud shifting
and heaving above and silent
inside lack of language
the communication of choice
questions unanswered plans
unmade like Saturday morning beds
swaying over daffodil reflections
rippling to the right sheer air
beyond below and never
slowing down
(c) 2019, by Hannah Six
Image: Anita Hart/CC BY-SA 2.0
Three minutes after goodbye
She glanced back in time to see
Him head bowed walking away
And beyond the precipice
A skyful of sparkling air
(c) 2019, by Hannah Six
Image: Shainee Fernando/Pexels
impatient landscapes
prepare to wait
nestling warm
amid painted curtains
drifting glowing
like wisdom in
the snow-perfumed wake
of winter nights
eclipsing disenchantment
and soon they will
sigh and turn toward
the windows misted over
with frozen joy
(c) 2019, by Hannah Six
If, every day, no veil
of blue obscured
our view of the universe,
would we be
so blasé about
the ever-present stars?
(c) 2019, by Hannah Six
Image: Pixabay
Tiny blue wildflowers dot the path.
He tramples them.
Rose-gold sunrise burns the eastern sky.
He closes the blinds.
Someone reaches out with kindness.
He smirks and turns his back.
He calls himself generous.
He calls himself an empath.
He calls himself a victim.
Many are fooled by his boyish charm,
but his deceptive ease and humor
mask a monster of the worst degree:
He is not your lover.
He is not your friend.
He is the enemy of joy.
He is the sudden darkness,
and his is the hand
that snuffs out the candle’s flame.
(c) 2019, by Hannah Six
Image: Pixabay
What love, that stirs you so deeply for this
world, which knows, intimately, each painful
step of your path (a staircase, spiraling into
an unseen end) to listen to peace as it bends
mysteriously out of sight, to explore its secrets
—tranquility is a curiosity you must satisfy
though you fear the journey, hunger for a way,
and dread your fathomless lake of yearning,
you wade into the suggestion of treasures ahead,
the story of a garden, growing secretly behind
your shadowed walls, and walk down a twisting,
time-strewn lane toward the unknown source
(c) 2019, by Hannah Six
Image: krantzpeter/Pixabay
Dragonflies dip testing
the fine taut surface
that separates
disparate worlds touching
parting coming together again
fickle lovers morning glories
blue as the sea
pendulum swinging inexorably
between
breath and breathlessness
(c) 2019, by Hannah Six
Image: Ray Hennessy
Choosing, you never made
a choice. Not choosing was
a choice unto itself.
How do you find your voice,
when, if you do, you don’t,
and if you don’t, you do?
When everything is black
or white, and there’s so little
room for gray, who decides
what’s right or wrong?
Our tragedy lies in extremes:
every hour is night or day,
all the in-between is gone,
and so, we miss the subtle dusk
and so, we miss the gentle dawn.
(c) 2019, by Hannah Six
Even the grass glistened,
each blade ablaze,
and the leaves, gold and russet,
sparkling wet, trembled
a little in the breeze
that set this dazzling scene
in motion.
Even the air glimmered,
and a flock of starlings took flight
from a bronzed oak
at the end of the road,
soaring as one, tilting
toward the sudden sunburst,
wings reflecting the briefest
glimpse of this magical world.
(c) 2019, by Hannah Six
Image: James Jordan (CC BY ND 2.0)
