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 

A Fountain (Day 163)

A fountain lingers

in a square where

one small, bronzed girl 

catches drops on her

slender fingers, 

where they glisten

in the slow, dry heat 

of noon, imaginary diamonds

set in tiny golden rings.

Birds swoop and dive, but 

summer saunters, hips 

swaying to the music 

in her head, the dour sirens 

banished with one vigorous 

shake of spring 

blossoms, petals falling to 

the sidewalk, like a sweetheart’s 

secret laugh. 

Nearby, on a dappled bench, 

an aging woman dreams of songs 

she used to sing, 

of willow roots submerged 

by rising creeks, 

and mud-encrusted cowboy boots 

on  sawdust-sprinkled floors. 

Poetry flutters behind her 

eyelids, toy boats twirl 

among the clouds 

reflected on the water’s 

surface, and 

the first cicada whirs,

one long note, old and strange.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

(Note: I cannot take credit for this lovely fountain image, which I played with a little to heighten the mood. Sadly, I've been unable to locate the proper source for attribution.)