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

Imperfect (Day 445)

look                      over there

see                       where 

we once were       it seems     

like                        always  

the                        sun               

moon                    and stars were

blazing                  red 

raging                   with anger        

in the west            don’t tell me 

their                      God’s in             

charge                  my spirit

still                        bears the 

prophesied           scars

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Sorbyphoto/Pixabay

Pointillist II (Day 436)

Breathe hush wind beach fog 

Petal cup hand abundant kiss

Slice green point edge damp

Electric shiver ice steel frost

Marine slough clear shimmer curl 

Breath flow gurgle chime rocks

Bird floral bittersweet wing dust

Knowing warmth wait send tucked

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Patterns of the superbloom 

at Carrizo Plain National Monument 

Bureau of Land Management/ 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

Just a glimpse (Day 407)

Once a smooth 

emerald-velvet breast

—where silver lights 

played and twigs rattled, 

concrete crackled, 
and sometimes,
sweetness sang
—deserts now splinter 

into angry glass, newly 

mown sand transformed 

by a blast of blazing 

heat such as the world 

has seldom known.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Sand dunes in Rub' al Khali, Arabia's "empty quarter". 
Acquired by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission 
and Reflection Radiometer, or ASTER, aboard 
NASA's Terra Earth-orbiting satellite.

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

Formal reception (Day 402)

Perfect white petals.

Slight eagerness stills cupped wings.

Formal reception.

Sternly, pines balk, branches bowed.

Eloquent wind speaks her mind.

Sighing, spring retreats.

Ice reclaims still pools and ponds.

Fickle winter smiles.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: pihajutkanen/Pixabay

Ice Music (Day 383)

come out   into 

the dearest sliver 

                       of night   

intuit  improvise  take 

    turns warming 

thin sensitive fingers   tickling 

the pitiless ice   the brush
  of its steely surface 
       like the merest kiss 

            of arctic fur  

breaking against 

your bare neck   curved 

strings of errors composing 

instrumental openings 

into delicate 

     musical lakes 
resonating   a still 

  slight sound

in a softer space  

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Photo: Emile Holba

Inspired by this article about Norway’s Ice Music Festival

Distress (Day 365)

I did not think 

we’d come

to this

I did not think 

we’d last 

so long

as a first kiss or 

a sparrow’s song

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image via Pexels

The Unthinkable (Day 361)

How do you find 

language to describe 

what no longer exists?

Is it a vacuum?

An absence? A lack?

How will you

explain what it was like 

when morning came 

and you found yourself

unable to pronounce

the title with

<his name>?

Unable to link words,

one by one, into 

a chain strong enough 

to safely convey 

the unthinkable?

What is it like for you

to imagine that 

dwindling time 

when the acknowledged

remained unimaginable? 

When dead-eyed, vapid,

and vacant were animated, 

instead, by mercy, 

intelligence, and humanity? 

Will you help them, 

one day, understand 

how we allowed our 

pure freedom

to be smeared and sullied

by the sticky fingers 

of unheeded warnings?

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: djacoby/Pixabay

Reclaimed (Day 353)

Reclaimed by the wind

this hot air, knocked down

hard hand in mine, 

lifeless rain leaks from 

the clouds, faceless seconds 

trickling down 

the slopes of a slow hour,

snowcaps slipping into the sea,

descending the ladder of souls,

while fertile land grows arid

in our climbing sun’s vice-like grip.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: 12019/Pixabay

Blue (Day 351)

blue 

blew through me

I knew the underside

of a frozen stream 

seeping through the sky

where its seams were 

still unfinished

new

I knew the rhythm 

of your blood 

inside the landscape 

of your veins

a pattern barely realized

yet recognizing my disguise

left you somehow

diminished

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Mt Rainier at Sunset, NOAA Library

World Like a Cat Toy (Day 313)

Sometimes the world 

feels like a cat’s toy, 

a little blue-green ball, 

new, shiny, frantically 

spun about for a while, 

then batted under the bed 

and soon forgotten. 

For weeks, months, or (yes), 

even years, the toy remains 

inert in dust-laden darkness.

But, on a far-off moving day, 

someone may find it, 

pick it up, and say, 

“Hey, remember this?” 

Then, once again, the little ball 

will enjoy more light and 

find renewed favor, and be 

maniacally spun about, until 

it is batted under the bed again.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Moritz320

Conscious Planet (Day 306)

raw and ugly   sawed blankly through 

the black green hillside of tumbledown 

trees presaging landslides to come   

slipping and slumming down on every 

gambler who packs his ivory-colored heart 

on the back of a public flirtation or 

a private-jet barter for a smallish blue planet 

careening through emptiness without 

a driver   its liquid center sloshing and 

splashing like a fringe-festival flask in 

the governor’s pocket   tender and aquatic   

fragile and pliant   she will rise to her full 

height one day and exact her molten revenge

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Jim D Griggs, US Geological Survey 

Mirror (Day 292)

Shivering mirror

petals punctuate 

each breath  rising

and subsiding

rippling outside-in  

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: AdrianKirby

Five-thirty (Day 271)

The curtain of five-thirty 

in the morning is 

dark as pitch 

and quite opaque  though 

persistent dawn slips 

through at the edges 

now and then  drawn 

shawl-like against a curious 

draft  wool tickling and 

warming your shoulders  

at the window  other people’s 

dreams buffet the glass  

seductive  cold as snowmelt.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: US National Park Service

Into a Gorge (Day 270)

Last night I 

         subsided into 

a gorge  dark  

  rose and 

     bronze and 

sand  fine and soft 

and deep   closing 

warm  around 

my ankles. Now 

summer  rolling up 

   the snow a dripping 

      towel of cold grit 

and no color on 

   the trees 

coming  tall 

as a wave  high as 

   a delirious flock 

      of Canada geese  

majestic  wise 

carrying our dreams 

to heaven.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: brh1028