A hint of sweetness (Day 404)

Winter is sleeping 

off an angry outburst 
now  its freshness faded  

and spring’s impending 

buds  sensing the end 

of long cold nights are 

forcing fall’s final leaves 

from their branches  

sending them flying 

toward the estuary  

striped gray and brown 

by three weeks of rain  

flooded with runoff 

from the foothills 

that glow like autumn 

in late afternoon 

when the fog breaks and

sunlight strokes last year’s 

storm-flattened grasses   

nomadic summer migrates 

northward now  fluttering  

open-ended  shallow  

but still in a deep sort of way 

and  straining toward it 

with open-mouthed desire 

we  confined to our nests  

yearn to grasp the slightest

wafer of warmth  a hint 

of sweetness in the air  

dreaming of bees humming 

over a bank of tiger lilies 

and heavy-headed peonies 

kissing the chalky gravel walk

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: John Singer Sargent, Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose (ca.1885), 
oil on canvas, photo courtesy Tate London/Wikimedia Commons

Beach Fire (Day 328)

Freighters’ lights, like stars,

glimmer and swim

in the distance. Between swells, 

they fall from view. Our eyes 

track their progress, instinctively

seeking their reappearance

each time they drop into vast 

watery valleys below the black 

horizon. Watching driftwood burn,

we feel the cold sand dampening.

Nearby, waves tumble and hiss,

closer now than before. The tide 

is turning. We must go.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Aris_Tsitiridis

Against a Buttery Sky (Day 276)

Above the orchard, tall 

trees against a buttery

sky, sating my spirit’s

deep hunger, portending 

umber flanks 

of gourd-round hills,

a pasture dotted 

Heaven, northern dusk 

fog-sheltered need, 

won as we cried for more, 

but by dawn, still and

you should see 

where, small and fragile, 

it lives on in me.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: racorvese

Solace of Trees (Day 275)

We long to open 

doors, and breathe 

a freshening breeze, 

to leave 

our gates unlocked, 

accept the solace

of trees whose 

constellation of greens 

shimmer overhead, 

to step into the middle, 

soft as sleep, 

and forage among 

the refuse of our day, 

to sigh, to laugh, 

to weep outright 

for what we had 

to leave along the road, 

with so little time to choose, 

voices raised in protest: 

Let us stay! And yet, 

both sides refuse, 

both sides refuse

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Toward Los Angeles, CA 1937, by Dorothea Lange 

via US Library of Congress

It's Like That (Day 264)

It isn’t a slow song that gets to me, 

but the shuffle of boots across

a sawdust floor, dry as august 

weeds, screen door banging against 

the frame from time to time, 

red dust coating on the chairs. 

It’s the way a certain singer’s voice 

breaks just there, at the edge of that 

single note, and how the steel guitar 

falls away from the band to sway 

through a slow swing solo. 

The beer is just okay. The crowd, 

rough as brand new, 

never-been-washed 501s.

But that boy, with the silver band 

around the crown of his dark brown hat? 

The way his eyes darken as he plays, 

and the skin at the nape of my neck 

tingles in anticipation? He brings me 

back, and back again.

It’s like the shuffle of bare feet on 

a wide-plank kitchen floor, the scent of 

strong coffee brewing on the frost-bitten 

edge of a long autumn morning. It’s like 

the sunlight glazing each falling leaf 

against the backdrop of a cedar forest, 

so the trees seem to be raining fire. 

Yeah. It’s like that.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Photo: Charles C Pierce, Inside the Yellow Aster Saloon, Randsburg, California, ca.1900

Cypress (Day 262)

sea-beguiled cypress

intent on sashiko waves

rippling whispers

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: skeeze

Stanislaus, 1970 (Day 251)

violent spring snowmelt

the river abducts those it wants

to its silent gravel bed

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Photo: (c) 2005, Dick James

http://www.byways.org

At the End of the Pier (Day 194)

Sitting at the end of the pier, 

you and I shared a coke, 

our feet dangling in midair. 

We inhaled the faint mist rising 

from the water, which flowed 

with the tide, left-to-right, below us, 

and imagined boats drifting past, 

carrying people we glimpsed 

on the news, people without 

homes, some running from, some 

running toward. Then, we fell silent, 

as children do, who, like refugees, 

carry little sense of power, helpless 

in the face of pain and despair, 

never realizing that we, hands tied, 

offered more than the entire city behind 

us—hearts in our hands, ready to give 

or to take, as the situation required. 

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Alcatraz Sunrise, by Tony Webster

Lilacs, Vineyard (Day 191)

If everyone listened to lilacs, 

the way she did that 

spring, the world would be 

light as a butterfly, balanced 

on a spiraling tendril in a 

honey-tinted vineyard. 

In the distance, bells tolled 

the hours, rolling over swelling 

hills in round, velvety tones. 

One day, as she leaned 

close to hear their whispered 

secrets, plump purple cluster 

filling her palm, a page of 

wasp’s nest paper alighted on 

her fingertips. The lilacs trembled

while she read, then hung 

their heads and sighed to see her, 

careful and straight, make her way 

across the upturned field, 

toward an aproned woman 

waiting, screen-door balanced 

against one puissant hip.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Valeria Boltneva

Lazy Meadows (Day 157)

 

Voluptuous 

moisture greens 

lazy meadows,

layered 

with haze and 

sunbeams,

thinly-sliced by 

the bittersweet 

perfume 

of decaying 

leaves.  

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Photo: Tuolumne Meadow, by Steve Dunleavy