Mammoth (Day 487)

Imagined transparent 

against eons of ice  awakened 

without a by-your-leave

awakened without a choice

bold conqueror 

of the frozen old   a foreigner 

in this subtler new New World

Mammoth whispered   

a trace of sadness 

tuned his ancient voice

Sundry seasons entranced 

ere darkness rose   

Sundry sunsets danced 

across virgin skies

where only flying creatures

had yet flown

No pitiless fears will come again 

to tired spirits below  

But pitiless mornings will rise

above considering all you know

Eyes closed   he melted 

into the blue crevasse

what would come 

to pass still echoed 

on frozen air 

a trace of sadness 

tuned his ancient voice   

we have a choice   for now   

we have a choice

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Simon Migaj/Pexels

Revolving Door (Day 453)

She craves 

the tonic of truth,

the flavor of 

cold canteloupe 

honey-sweet and 

slippery  sliced thin as 

mountain morning air 

She yearned 

to wander through 

the labyrinth of language  

to spin in and out 

of the revolving door 

between 

the Summer of Love’s

fizzing orange 

and unripe green 

and the cobalt blue

Reagan era’s satin  sequins 

and cheap gold plate 

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Delegation of Girls (Day 444)

Imagination is travel 

a frail blessing   redeeming 

this urgent trip 

     on which 

the delegation of girls is 

     beginning to feel 

        like doing very little 

but they are 

     creating and giving  

     crying and embracing

     waking everyone 

yet having no idea 

where to find   

or place   their love

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: PxHere

Ever (Day 442)

Sun sliding

behind the hills, 

we sat 

on the floor, 

knees crossed, and 

you told me that 

if I asked you to 

stay 

you would 

throw it all away 

for me. 

Why didn’t you

leave then? 

Could you not 

see that 

by giving up 

your own dreams, 

you were 

also damning mine?

Or didn’t you

understand that

what I meant

when I asked 

you not to leave, 

was: Ever.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: ribastank/Pixabay

Coming Years (Day 439)

imagining majestic scenes 

and indigo horizons, 

steeling himself, he walks 

purposefully toward his first flight, 

white-knuckled 

grip on the leather handles 

of his bags

before today, exotic meant 

a drive-up in a neighboring state,

a girl whose seamed hose 

looked almost as soft as her 

bare legs, and dancing 

to jazzy music, late at night, 

in the parking lot 

the symphonic prairie, 

vast—glowing as it would in all 

his coming years 

of dreams—blooming beneath 

the milky way, blowsy 

and heavy with memories 

as a late-autumn rose.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: EvgeniT/Pixabay

What Teachers Earn (Day 437)

My thoughts shift, recapturing 

Home. You were scat singing 

by an open window, saying Oops! 

whenever a song veered off in 

an arbitrary direction, 

or your thoughts wandered 

down the darkened street where 

I lingered among a scattering 

of streetlight puddles.

Hearing the neighbors whispering 

in their beds, I learned that 

our teachers earned less 

than the pale, sweaty man 

who managed the dollar-store, 

and considered bursting 

into tears at the brutal, repetitive 

nature of injustice. 

This is what we like: 

Holding hostage those who hold 

all of our knowledge, because 

they are too dangerous to trust

—except with our children’s minds 

and our own vivid future.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: tookapic/Pixabay

A Simple Matter (Day 435)

I am told 

  it’s a simple matter 

      to grow old.

To grow old but 

   to want 

      to look

  a certain way

  at younger men

  and be looked at in return.

To want to look 

  at photos

    of people who are alive

      not at the dead ends

      of my long-lost friends.

I feel too big 

  to become so small. 

I feel too hard 

  to become so soft,

too young 

  to become invisible

yet.

I am assured 

that even if 

I am alone   which I expect 

I will be    since you left me

that   

there will be 

some charity or other

  to drop in on me 

    as I knit socks by the window.

But that isn’t 

how I want it 

to be.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Vincent van Gogh, Scheveningen Woman Knitting, watercolor on paper

The greenness of yesterday’s grass (Day 434)

They fantasized 

about resting 

on ancient oceans’ 

sticky surfaces,

about finding a path 

their feet would recognize 

as the way home.   

Among the fortunate few 

who could forget 

the greenness 

of yesterday’s grass, 

in the end, for this 

privilege, they were met 

with disdain, scorned 

and rebuffed, but 

they remained hopeful and 

taught their children 

to swirl through the world 

having vast adventures, 

voyages of possibility, 

and when they encountered 

their own ripples, 

swelling like waves 

to wash them 

clean away, without a trace, 

they knew that choosing 

this deafening moment 

is everything.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Martie Swart/Flickr

Bridge (Day 432)

Bridge of no burdens. 

Leaf-green light, bright with warblers.

Beneath, clear stream flows.

(c) by Hannah Six

Image: Bergadder/Pixabay

Words Hit the Paper (Day 429)

The words hit the page differently when 

the light enters my room from the east   

letters tumble and scatter  landing as they 

may in heaps and clusters  later in the day 

I will find an hour or two  when I can linger 

and hold them  gaze fixed softly on an image 

in the middle distance  fingers folding and 

coaxing the rambunctious disarray until 

a gentle thrill of recognition wakes me to a 

poem  now revealed in its inevitable form

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Unknown miniaturist, The Monk Eadwine (c 1150),

 illustration on parchment, Trinity College, University of Cambridge

This Inert Drama (Day 428)

This inert drama—

gentle 

winds freeze 

you in place, warm 

on the tender petals

of your eyelids, closed,

face tilted toward the sun.  

Still, from within, 

ancestors urge you now

to run 

from that resentment 

while it sleeps. 

Smart, wiry dogs 

rush to their owners, 

joy crackling underfoot 

like ice in April.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Photo: ulleo/Pixabayu

Up Three Flights (Day 425)

Sandals landing on wooden 

steps like flat palms 

on drums  she runs up three 

flights and knocks back

humid air  thick 

with the scent 

of undergrowth  sweet 

and dark as late-summer 

midnight sweat on clean 

sheets  thinly sliced 

coral from a corner streetlight 

falling through bamboo shades 

across the bed  and his head 

less peaceful  less quiet 

than she knew  on the pillow 

for now anyway  a place to rest 

her mind when the present 

feels too sharp  because 

understanding is worth 

the effort  but you don’t always 

have to do it in the dark

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Edited image found on Pexels

Haiku for Day 411

Peeling paper birch.

Firework orange, the sun sinks.

Silence feels colder. 

(c) by Hannah Six

Image: ilyessuti/Pixabay

Too Many Apples (Day 410)

a heart wary of commitment

afraid of cutting 

more roses

than the vase can hold

or peeling 

too many apples 

for the holiday pie

a feeling like a little twinge 

of nostalgia for 

slices of coral sand 

and oceans

       so bright

           they singe the eyes

or like one too many 

long late meetings 

    at the office, 

while, at home,

I change the sheets 

on our old bed and clean 

all the windows

until they seem to disappear

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Jeremy Hiebert/Flickr

Trout (Day 408)

Overhanging branches  speckled brown as trout 

by months of unfiltered sun and lingering 

drought   spring-fed streams   cold 

and clean on the surface   water of many 

rivers   flowing warily westward   rising 

through narrow 

chasms of  

tumbling 

boulders

swiftening under bridges built 

when mystery veiled the moon 

then 

spreading out 

into the ease of a broad delta plain.

Looking down-river   watching 

water-spiders float effortlessly on the taut skin 

of a deep-plunging pool   shady niches 

harbor insect worlds and coarse bits 

of upstream-stories drift past 

tell tale rings on the green-black surface 

where fish rise to kiss the air

and all of this will help 

you see

and all you will see 

in all of this

is an iridescent flash—a fish darting 

into shadows in front of 

or behind rocks or submerged fallen trees—

swimming impossibly fast   like a dream

disappearing before your eyes 

because they spotted you 

before you 

were able to lure them with the subtle bait 

fastened on your glinting hook.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: steinchen/Pixabay

With Disdain (Day 403)

With disdain, he considers modern women: 

ditching wifely duties, wearing sweatpants,

working on laptops after dinner instead of 

donning delightful pegnoir ensembles to 

entertain their men. So distasteful. 

They wanted to go into combat? Hah!

As far as he’s concerned, enough is enough.

Time to stop this ridiculous anti-male crap.

Time to stop trying to be men’s equals, learn 

to gratefully accept their cushy feminine fate. 

If these ghouls today really want to serve their 

country, they’ll go back to stiletto heels, micro 

skirts, and sexy lingerie. Instead of getting 

offended every time a man looks at them, ladies 

oughta smear on a little red lipstick, beautify 

the Earth like God intended they should.

After all, why would any girl pretty enough 

to hitch her little wagon to a well-heeled man 

give up all that luxury and ease—to say nothing 

of her biblical duty to take care of her husband 

and children? It’s the greatest job in the world!

The problem with modern women, he decided 

years ago, is they’re incapable of understanding 

how damn good they actually have it. Sad!

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Original images:

Housewife: Public domain image

Trump: Gage Skidmore via Flickr