Even as the year ends
doors continue to close
Another beloved is missing
— all the unshared memories
aching like bruises — lost
now to those who remain
Far above a faint radiance:
crystal and self-congratulation
It is finally over they say
Next time will be different
And we step carefully around
the empty yearning spaces
This silent New Year’s Eve
we have created
a moonlit snowfield
barren and remarkable
© 2020 by Hannah Six
Image: Pixabay
Punishing misfortune,
he champions the affluent
and large corporations.
Petrified by lack and loss,
he withholds and dismisses.
Aghast at his vacuity,
he brandishes heartlessness.
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
Heads bent together, industriously
glueing blossoms back together
they rebuild the arrangement
petal by petal,
communing gently, lips parted
just enough to shape whispered
plans and promises.
And the house-cat rises like a moon,
offering mystical counsel, though,
to his dismay, it is seldom heeded.
And, in her fireside bed, the dog grins
because, despite the feline element,
her pack is together once again.
© 2020 by Hannah Six
Image: Pixabay
The Cold Moon ascends
shouldering night’s canopy
aloof, nurturing
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
Image: Pixabay
Astounded by a tsunami of disdain who can look
away who can comprehend the fact
that they left they left to celebrate
in luxury while millions of souls falter
to tee off in the sun while children go without
breakfast lunch dinner
to sip champagne while people prepare to lose
their homes cars freedom lives
to consider discuss and argue the finer points
while we try to carry on to soften our anger
despite trauma so carelessly inflicted
do you ever wonder
how many endings a winter can hold
and how many more and how many more again
before spring overwhelmed struggles to arrive
© 2020 by Hannah Six
Image: Pixabay
the well-tended candle
on a windowsill
in a blinding storm
the little white ball
that rims the cup
and refuses to drop in
the strong hand
reaching grasping yours
pulling you to safety
the upstairs neighbor
who runs 14 miles a day
indoors
the woodpecker
braving bitter cold
showing off his red touque
the painted billboard
on an old brick building
barely legible
the stamped postcard
discovered
in a yellowing used book
the hours spent
in company with those
who are no longer
© 2020 by Hannah Six
Image: Pixabay
last glimpse lights
reflect tinny untuned
tomorrow we find our way
back abundant again
flame ribbons and overhead
branches arabesque
dream it will not be
for nothing tangled tinsel
green as paper as grass
and finally but now rest
© 2020 by Hannah Six
Is there something to say
about Christmas?
It eludes me and has
ever since.
All the gifts we have
not wrapped gifts
we will never give
a place remains beneath
the tree we did not buy
or trim because.
And all the memories
we shared together apart
are best left carefully packed
and stored undisturbed
until.
if ever.
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
Image: Pixabay
Disappear into your own
brand of luxe Hell celebrate
as you do without delight
While countless tiny castles
built on sand are swept
into your sea of no regret
At sunrise when no trace
is left behind a distant song
of dread and waiting fades
to its familiar final chord
rending dissonant and still
you remark only on
the smoothness of the shore
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
Image: Pixabay
Reclining in a violet haze
she awaits her rain lover
Whose liquid fingers trace her
deepest curves in the half-light
Softening at his insistent touch
she silently blesses him
Even as she is diminished even
as she melts into the warming sea
© 2020 by Hannah Six
Image: Pixabay
Late into the night he walked
and could not stop compelled
stumbling but still he walked
hallway bedroom unobserved
noticing tobacco wool soap
kitchen hints of bitter walking
his glass carelessly held
his narrow smile greeting changes
he sensed even the silent walls
like attenuated laughter voices
raised in disarray long after
the truth of it of mind and home
dawned how can they not
know we can hear everything
© 2020 by Hannah Six
She says a mountain rose beyond
which she could climb in solitude
though she seldom did
she says she was
astounded by a wave deep and blue
as an August afternoon she traversed
a battlefield of upturned trees
their roots clutching tremendous
earth-packed sockets
tangled as lovers’ limbs she says
a narrow pathway runs along the cliffs
above an ocean where one might sit
for hours in rustling grasses counting
the plumes of whales coming up for air
she says her orange tree is in bloom
once more hundreds
of hopeful faces glowing beneath
a full moon undeterred by prospects
of drought or marauding racoons
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
One of those white-sky
days subtly altered reined
in longing to be out
the blank ground marred
by footprints and iridescent
shadows trailing visitors
long gone is summer
memory or dream only
time drifting lazily will tell
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
divine enemy
invisible beloved
unbidden guest
obsessive, breathtaking —
how closely fear mirrors love
© 2020 by Hannah Six
the day fizzed
orange and unripe
blinding us
an unsuspected wealth
of murmuring paths
and silver rivers
bit by bit
its corners unfolded
revealing little wonders
in the manner
of a lie
hinting at truth
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
Vacant stainless we visited
every page erased pure
surfaces without reflection
as if no one had ever been
home there we slept apart
he honored
the utile the disposable
every white shade separated
measuring the wide margins
around and within like petals
while he speaks like goodnight
a familiar language he is not
indigenous to affection
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
From indigo clouds
snow falls like minor angels
— ephemeral host
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
On the far shore where clearer water fades
to glass gilded lovers lounge on a coral beach
with fewer stones lips pursed around thin straws
sipping fanciful drinks that seem never to melt
How can you forget
What you never remembered?
A sigh. A promise.
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
Lake-blue his eyes sparkle in the sun
pale hair blown wild by the wind
One by one shops and cafes close
their customers stranded in the cold
on an afternoon made for playing
catch He runs the length of the lawn
peering through darkened windows as if
someone might be playing a terrible joke
deftly avoiding three lethal land mines
strewn about like so many plastic trucks
and might open the door at any moment
Down the road an elderly man cries
and tags all the low-hanging branches
buoyed by visions of olympic glory
for his daughter who had been afraid
to go to a hospital for help And a woman
Fading quickly to twilight the day grows
cold His mother calls him inside where
surrounded by dead and dying friends
knows she should stay home and yet
there will be hot chocolate because
it is winter and there always is
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
On grief’s crowded shoreline
undulations of numbness
wash footprints from the sand
© 2020 by Hannah Six
moon-muted garden
flourishing imperceptibly
secret pleasures bloom
© 2020 by Hannah Six
say hello to the stars
when you look up
one hour after dark
or to the furious wind
urging you forward
on a familiar dare
when you lay
on those old tattered quilts
count the yellow roses
for me
how many nestle amid
faded pink gingham
and blue ticking stripes
and if you find yourself
enfolded by morning
allow yourself
to be
© 2020 by Hannah Six
Neither novel nor new
days grown faded as
sunbleached cotton on
a backyard line
Some gray as February
snow scraped from grim
city sidewalks
Just a little longer we say
Next year will be different
knowing it may be
much the same And so
eyes scanning the horizon
we keep one another
afloat
© 2020 by Hannah Six
The pines the cold
A lemon morning sky
We were briefly
a poem: you & I
No wild-wandering
epic — a haiku
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
do your sleep-flushed cheeks
rest on a blue silk sea
when you rise as you will
above time’s roughest tides
do you long for fields of
softly-pleated clouds or perhaps
the dancing stars distract you
from the distance
you have sailed
how far you are from the shore
You may find comfort in your things,
but they will not comfort you.
The dictionary is merely an open door.
Sadness recognizes itself, and
in so doing, is diminished.
Your car, in a crowded parking lot,
is a nautilus shell.
Those you miss most may not
have been your own.
Some secrets can only be whispered
at three o’clock in the morning.
Music is a wildfire of generosity,
each song a candle’s flame.
Grief is not a medal to be displayed;
neither is joy.
Hello marks a beginning, but
goodbye is a journey without end.
© 2020 by Hannah Six
Today I am tired
of my words
tired
of silence and beneath
of sky and bird
forest and leaves
golden twilight you
whisper tired
of unknowing rippling
awash in pale
adjectives and nouns
tired and I am curious
wasn’t an ending expected
sometime before
the exhausted words
fell away
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
Utter disregard.
Sporadic, ill-chosen words.
Exorbitant silence.
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
Never will you be
disincluded elided
an awkward silence
in a conversation
overheard in a library
or a crowded cafe
Never will you be
an empty page in
a quiet little memoir
much lauded but
seldom read a song
no one requests or
a box of photgraphs
left by the roadside
because you will
Never be a source of
concern or more than
a little regret & if I do
forget you it will be
because my mind has
betrayed me in that
way you had of leaving
me with everything
except air to breathe
& my happiest years
© 2020 by Hannah Six
Once swept by sheer currents
this stone bridge waits anchored in ice
each arch a rising sun
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
These moments
before midnight
transformation
a vague promise
tucked away in
a jewelry chest
and now they
say no now
they disagree how
will we ever recall
this shallow eve
of liberation how
will we explain our
unforgiven debts
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
From a promontory of tumbled rocks
an infinite view of timeless trees
vast white wings cutting a rising mist
weather-softened hills reclining one
against the other — like rotund bathers
in a Belle Epoque painting
Alone in the wind she climbed
out onto the rocks and in his hand
a camera Be careful he said and
because they were together she only
laughed as he snapped her picture
She has it still the photo of a girl
her back to the world turning
toward the camera looking directly
into the lens behind which obviously
are the eyes of her lover whose image
she captured just moments later against
that fathomless green backdrop he stands
facing the edge and the endless beyond
She gazes now at the curve of his shoulder
at the angle of his back and tells herself
Then I should have known then
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
you with a shrug
unfamiliar until now
thin as kite tails
a wink say never
straining to hear
centuries of paradise
ears trained on every hour
wondering at the music
of rain falling
through the night
like stars
like a scattering —
half-remembered notes
from a nearly-forgotten song
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
One white butterfly
flickering among bare branches
no, it is merely a half-leaf
catching the sun as it falls
for a fleeting moment, though,
spring was more than a promise
and the green-gold world
seemed to have come alive again
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
they are so tired
every couple of weeks
of months of do not
he warmed up the Rambler
go do not see do not
drove us to the new drug store
and they are afraid of
bought us ice cream cones
change understanding
then let us wander the aisles
how close
we could be
and imagine for half an hour
how close
we are
© 2020 by Hannah Six
Something, in the woods, will change.
The leaves will soon be rearranged.
Vultures will yield to chickadees —
nature endures, in times like these.
© 2020 by Hannah Six
Sometimes, missing yesterday
steals the delight of now away.
Contentment, gratitude and peace
sustain hope in times like these.
© 2020 by Hannah Six
Somehow, he must understand
he’s out — we spoke, and our votes stand
— whether or not he disagrees.
Ominous in times like these.
© 2020 by Hannah Six
Someone wore a Biden hat
A man in bright red knocked him flat.
Lifelong friends — now enemies.
Ominous in times like these.
© 2020 by Hannah Six
Someplace magical has burned,
And Washington is unconcerned.
Sequoia snow floats on the breeze —
Ominous in times like these.
© 2020 by Hannah Six
Something, in the woods, has died.
I knew it by the vultures’ cries,
Their dark shapes swooping
through the trees.
Ominous, in times like these.
Flock of robins singing
into a November landscape
as if it were spring
Translucent trail of sepia
ink flowing through
a gold-nibbed pen
Once-green hills glowing violet
in winter’s shifting light
Understanding
they are no longer
Loose-limbed weight
of a purring cat kneading
a woolly blanket
Single candle flame flickering
through colored glass
Sounds of children playing
outdoors late
into a summer evening
Knowing you always will
How a song leaves you
reeling with the sense
of a time and place long past
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six