Haiku for Day 1350

Watching dark clouds swell

No escaping this storm

Rivers will run with ink

(c) 2020 by Hannah Six

Sea level (Day 1349)

They asked for time

so   lips downturned

he berates   revives   revises   

his old stories   every day

a ragged breath  

they promised change

a shame   considering 

his mind   sea-level and 

neglected as it is   

they wanted silence

and we will place a braid 

of roses in his name 

some steely dawn   

then turn and wander off 

a lifetime’s work

like wet sand underfoot

(c) 2020 by Hannah Six

November beckons (Day 1348)

November beckons  promising 

freedom 

in shades of gray & brown

summer’s baroque 

branches & vines stripped 

down to necessities 

at last   respite 

from July’s cruel glare 

August’s desultory meanderings

harvested   the hopes 

of growing things striving upward

fulfilled   the vows  earnest 

& feigned  of an intricate web

in whose center we are not 

(c) 2020 by Hannah Six

Haiku for Day 1347

 

spiraling golden leaves 

marmalade cat observes autumn

season of falling birds

© 2020 by Hannah Six 

In the vines (Day 1346)

in the vines

gold is not sun

but shot

with a current

of light

red  not 

blood  sweet yet 

berries still 

grow  sparse

brushstrokes

and there  a touch

of blue  soon

it will be

(c) 2020 by Hannah Six

Shallow cover (Day 1345)

With a pale pink kiss

gray light scratches 

at the windows

A long procession 

of dim marble nights 

has made shallow 

cover for the moon 

Now sunrise comes 

too soon   emptying 

the sky of stars

© 2020 by Hannah Six

Across Miles — Cento 57 (Day 1344)

layered with haze   fallow fields   

subtle   gentle   ancient 

history   carved in sweet acacia

antennae gold with pollen

the mighty thrumming

of 10,000 powerful hearts

 

a sound like lingering 

day   like endless ocean

or poems without words

that may or may not 

return   across those waves  

a sunrise waits   

across miles of yes   floating 

at water’s edge   reluctant 

to encounter each rapacious gust 

urging   begin

(c) 2020 by Hannah Six

Wake (Day 1343)

Now and then 

you wake

a heavy blanket of realization 

    weighing you down

and you want to close your eyes

and you long to drift back to sleep

to escape into the sweet softness 

    of your dreams

but you wake and are awake

and so must do

© 2020 by Hannah Six 

Equinox (Day 1342)

Perfectly equal

(give or take a few minutes)

Nature pauses   rests

Balanced between dark 

and light   between warm and cool

— if only we could

© 2020 by Hannah Six

At stake (Day 1341)

What is at stake: 

kindness 

the kind that remembers yesterday & today

without forgetting tomorrow

the ability to consider our world in its entirety

not peeled & sectioned like a bitter grapefruit

sprinkled with sugar to trick the tongue

a future none of us wants to inhabit, a featureless 

zone of productivity, profit & loss

more than we care to admit

the quotidian details of our common experience

the surprise of a sweetly-dimpled smile

the pleasurable ache of falling into bed 

   after a long day’s work

the uneven wood of a well-used tabletop

the comforting brush of wool against feet & hands

the transcendent breath of unfiltered sunset

What is at stake:

the beginning, middle & end — every heart

every atom thrumming & vibrating

keeping time with our own

That is everything 

we stand to lose

© 2020 by Hannah Six

Kind questions (Day 1340)

before delving 

into the twilight depths 

of your forgiveness

or otherwise   

take time to seek 

comfort in kind 

questions   gentle answers —

the way a single cloud 

perfects

a pristine summer sky

and autumn’s faintest 

hues enhance the green

September woods

how bittersweet nostalgia 

sometimes heightens 

pure contentment 

and shattered hearts 

find they can hold 

love enough 

for all the world 

(c) 2020 by Hannah Six

I met a man on horseback (Day 1339)

I met a man on horseback,

who said that he was right.

His armor shone like silver,

his horse was milky white.

So, I believed him.

He insisted up was down,

lectured that dark was light —

but his sword was so bejeweled,

his horse so clean and white!

(I was naïve, then.)

Soon, I learned his truths were lies,

his honor belied his spite.

His armor hid a bitter heart,

and that horse was prone to bite.

He had deceived me.

So, beware of heroes in the woods,

proud champions of the fight.

Hearts glistening like solid gold,

are often pure pyrite. 

You can believe me.

© 2020 by Hannah Six

Home (Day 1338)

You are flying over water 

blue as a fairytale

deep and comfortable 

as familiar company 

attending to every spirit 

of the west  a hammock 

of crescent moon 

cradling the early stars

a well-mannered temperate 

evening of liquid reflections 

and soft-edged smiles

gentle haze of smoke 

mingling with the scent 

of seaweed  perfume  

of long-lost summers 

and immeasurable possibility

of guitar chords and voices 

floating into the redwoods 

while your eyes grow heavy

of sleeping loosely on cool 

damp earth  safely ensconced 

in the lavish poetry of 

the sea  singing you home

© 2020 by Hannah Six

Winding down (Day 1337)

This afternoon the sky darkened to gray,

behind a haze of smoke and cloud cover 

from some hurricane moving up the coast. 

That happens often this time of year.

At outdoor tables, people arrived and left,

worked and laughed, knowing our brightest 

months are winding down, loathe to 

relinquish summer’s delicious freedoms. 

Soon the days will draw close, first and last

light consumed by expanding shadows, and 

we will abandon ourselves to timeless rhythms, 

revolving gradually until to face the sun again.

© 2020 by Hannah Six

  

Fall shower (Day 1336)

Falling leaves comfort 

the evening breeze, 

a shower of radiant 

sunset sparks  

blazing briefly in 

their frame of trees,

whirling silently

through the darkness,

weaving, for the world,

a carpet of flames

(c) 2020 by Hannah Six

They forget (Day 1335)

Confidently, they bustle about, smirking 

like people in-the-know, all sunlight and 

sparkle, spit-and-polish, secure 

in their importance, they disregard portentious

storm clouds, commanding night’s looming 

depths to part, so they may possess and profit

but they forget: we are mere apparitions,

unaware of our invisibility, tenuous lives 

unspooling as we hurtle toward dénouement

(c) 2020 by Hannah Six

Marginalia (Day 1334)

astonishing cocktail 

of stars   lavished on 

a cool and curious world   

dim reflections   not quite 

rippling the polished 

surface of 3 a.m. — 

this is where answers are 

lost and found   

mere dreams   faded

illuminations   concealed 

by time in the narrowest

margins of day

© 2020 by Hannah Six

& even your lies (Day 1333)

& I will take all your stories 

of mushrooms growing wild 

on lonely stone beaches 

& rotary telephones hiding 

like mice in cubbies carved 

out of the walls

& even your lies 

how the ocean froze hard 

as a street & a tree helped 

a boy keep a secret from a girl 

near her cellarless house where 

an earthquake once fixed 

eight uneven stairs & the roof

& bless you with ten thousand truths 

how lightning flared through your 

small attic window as bright as the sun 

through an old blue glass vase 

& bless you with ten thousand truths 

how you walked 15 miles on a cold 

summer highway singing old songs 

in a downpour of stars & you knew

& that night you two fell in love

& I will take all your stories 

& even your lies 

& bless you with ten thousand truths 

& bless you with ten thousand truths 

(c) 2020 by Hannah Six

Haiku for Day 1332

time swells and contracts

underwater reflections

each hour a surprise

(c) 2020 by Hannah Six

Those we tell (Day 1331; September 11, 2020)

That sky   blue as blue   

belonged to everyone   same as 

when nothing was the same

after   like daggers   

we told those we tell    our stories  

at odds with forgetting

& there   & there it was   

before   when we were ever changed   

over   & over again   

you see   now began then   

but that day does not belong to us   

does it   

& we looked   looked away

then could not stop   seeing people 

like birds   planes 

like snow   eyes closed  

we remember   not all belong to us

we tell them anyway

(c) 2020 by Hannah Six

No words (Day 1330)

Some days 

there are no words   

only

soft   warm

the air

like

where it lifts

from the corner

and in the middle 

distance

© 2020 by Hannah Six

Haiku for Day 1329

How birch leaves flutter

And paper wasps tend their nests

See where spring remains

© 2020 by Hannah Six

Only Time (Day 1328)

The trees can feel it coming

but do not abscise 

their leaves from fright   foregoing 

autumn splendors. 

Neither will I.

Gray days and frigid nights 

of gently fizzing snow 

hold little terror

only time

and time 

enough to grow 

somnolent and vague   

in need of spring   which will appear

at its own pace.  You see?

The trees can feel it coming.

© 2020 by Hannah Six

Anticipating wind-chimes (Day 1327)

 

Anticipating wind-chimes, 

she was amazed to find 

butterflies — silent, engrossed 

in spiraling pas de deux,

on the rising breeze.

© 2020 by Hannah Six

The sweetness at the end of the meadow (Day 1326; Part 5: Ode to A__)

5. Ode to A__

I can still picture you, gray hair cut en brosse

(I thought that might make you laugh),

those thick, black-framed glasses you wore 

long after/before they became fashionable,

not too tall, not too heavy,

but not otherwise,

in sturdy work clothes that would have 

looked at home on a farm, or in a repair shop.

Your business was neither, and, as it turned out,

it was not even yours. Or was it? No matter.

How Dickens would have loved you.

In those days, in a different kind of world, 

one found a job to help pay for college.

I was such a one, and you offered such a job.

When I worked quickly, you suggested 

I slow down, so I could earn more money.

When a situation turned ugly, you stepped in, 

did my work and cleaned up long before I arrived.

In those days, in that different world,  

when one fractured a wrist, 

one visited the family physician.

I was such a one,  with such a wrist.

So, you took me to your own doctor, and insisted 

on paying for my care.

Then, because I could not work one-handed, 

you offered me a better job, and a raise.  

Were you kind? Yes, to me.

Were you cruel? I suspect so.

And you were steady, and funny, and flawed.

And you were generous, and withdrawn. 

But I did not recognize you, your complexity 

— for self-centered youth inhabits a world 

of supporting characters. And now I wonder 

if I can truthfully say that I remember you, 

as you deserved to be remembered. 

All this, and more, is true.

© 2020 by Hannah Six

Of coffee and conversation (Day 1325)

a deep slant of golden autumn light  

cuts the dry air   a door is closing 

on summer   but autumn is slipping 

in through an open window   

outdoors   a hum of conversation   

friends and lovers meet   sip coffee 

for a while   then move back into 

the stream of their days 

some wear long pants and sleeves 

others arrive in shorts and dresses

in this time of transition 

we do not yet know which way to lean 

tethered by trickling words   I linger 

among shape-shifting blue shadows 

while other lives   pegged out  in the breeze   

ripple and snap all around

this one has birth control it’s so fucking cool

that one is disgusted by casseroles   

even the word   which sounds like 

English people trying to speak German   

and all the while   an insect hum brightens 

the air   the iridescent wings of dragonflies 

carrying countless tiny rainbows

high into the bright September sky

(c) 2020 by Hannah Six

Framed (Day 1324)

briefly   through a door

propped open 

to the summer wind

she is

there   in semi-darkness

arms raised   folding 

a fitted sheet by herself

curious yet disinterested 

lost in the dreams 

one dreams when folding 

hundreds of towels

in bleach-scoured air

for a moment

our eyes meet   and

we are the same   familiar 

with the stillness 

of a purloined moment

of solitude in a day 

framed by obligations

© 2020 by Hannah Six

Trinkets (Day 1323)

hold closely the unwritten book of ancient landscapes 

and words 

long since forgotten, the droplets of pewter 

sky and soil-sweetened mist along the path you stroll 

alone, those bird-bright mornings when music swells 

like light through a window 

hide them well, this collection of shiny trinkets 

that caught your raven’s eye

then, when a storm approaches, take them out,

and hold them, one by one, let their weight

lay heavy in your palms, and consider the possibility 

that you will not drown in the waves that spin overhead,

tangled in their lace-edged labyrinth of foam, 

but glide gently over each crest, sliding easily into 

troughs where the blue-diamond sea unfurls, 

sun-warmed and smooth as polished stone

© 2020 by Hannah Six

Before (Day 1322)

Before we lost our sight, we found 

beauty in beginnings,

answers in a low-slung moon

round as a summer peach, 

faith in mornings veiled by rain, 

clear as frosted glass, 

and when the light grew dim, we dove, 

deep into the lakes of our closed eyes, 

slept, unseen, in canopies of leaves, 

and, like leopards, we refused 

to change our striking spots — 

before the first twig snapped, 

before the forests fell, 

before truth was reviled, christened 

obscene — boundless, we 

made our wildest mistakes, indulging 

in the innocence of our wrongs.

(c) 2020 by Hannah Six

Unshielded (Day 1321)

miles and miles of mirrors

   and a brittle wind scraped

miles and miles of mirrors

   our unshielded land just as

miles and miles of mirrors

   the rains began in earnest

(c) 2020 by Hannah Six