This Desert (Day 512)

We have seen this

desert where 

you would send

the innocent.

We have seen this

desert where

their lives will grow

hard and barren.

We have seen this

desert where 

you will nurture

their nightmares.

It is empty.

Nearly as empty

as your hearts. 

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Pixabay

Strange Country (Day 385)

Wide 

strange country 

under pale empty skies   

the women, walking, stand 

straight (no stoop-shouldered, 

martyred shuffling, no slouchers 

or complainers) walking, wonder 

why and whether they will ever 

learn when their parents die,

if they will ever know their 

nieces and nephews 

names.  

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Note: I chose not to include a photo with today’s poem, in the interest of inclusivity. Everywhere, throughout time, women have gotten a bum deal. We need to stand together. 

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

Dark-eyed boys (Day 277)

two dark-eyed boys

their father 

at the window parting 

red curtains  kick a ball 

where the greenest grass 

grows  watered by tears 

she cried when she kissed them 

goodbye  there  then

all she could hope for was 

a warm day  lamenting that  

during the rain  they had 

not been able to play outdoors

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image:sasint

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

Maybe We Are (Day 236)

Maybe we 

are not all 

the same. 

Maybe 

some of us 

are upside 

down 

or inside 

out. 

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Free-photos

Our Heroes (Day 214)

Are you, our heroes,

tumbling into dull despair?

Forgetting how 

the ripest fruits are worth 

the highest price?

Don’t fear the flashing 

lights that wake your 

bedroom walls at night.

Don’t gauge the value 

of the prize 

on the violence of the fight.

Do you recall how 

those you followed, 

merrily, shook with mirth—

imagining, with lust, 

the day the meek receive 

the Earth?

Allow the sky its blue, and 

clouds their varied shades,

your voice to shout 

your truth, authentic 

love to win the day.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Parade for returning Apollo 11 astronauts, NASA

A Single Source (Day 205)

Delight, divorce, devotion,
a cup’s a cup, no matter 

who finally pours the tea

fright, remorse, a common

notion, from a single source,

infinitude, a dream, a lie

resounding between your 

aspirations and my own, 

a treasure, found: a kiss 

goodbye, a shell, perhaps 

it simply seems full-blown, 

because your eyes are green, 

my own, the darkest brown

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Free-Photos via Pixabay

Generous Hearts (Day 197)

Generous hearts sigh heavenly

above a vengeful wreck,

alchemy draws awe from ice

eager, crackling spring

reveals infant pity, curled 

a nautilus of frozen hope

belligerence and boredom stilled 

unwilling, marble cries 

brittle joy, unsatisfied

cruelty’s fronds unfurl,

smoke rings stain a golden sky

filigree shrouds a violet pearl

brave new winter looms beyond

cicada evenings soft and long

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Karsten Paulick

Singing Alouette (Day 196)

singing Alouette   unaware 

of the threat behind the rolling words 

which   one day   she’ll wish she could 

forget   when the plucking of the little bird 

disturbs her brave heart   disrupts her 

tender soul   a bower of deep green 

dreams   hidden high among the pears  

seated on a V   longing for admittance 

to a world she does not know   for questions

proving what her answers show

pushing back a darkness she knows well  

a slippery pet  claws at her family tree

reckless   overwhelmed   she takes a stand

determined not to let her feelings show

she plants her feet   a warrior   sword at hand     

and stares down her fire-breathing foe

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Beyond Caring (Day 195)

Beyond caring 

Who made more

Of an effort

We passed the book

Back and forth

Copying without 

Understanding

Answering questions

Without learning 

The answers

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

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

When I Think of You (Day 185)

When I think of you

I see myself   

stretched out 

   under the same sun

in the same field   glowing 

golden just like you 

and when I look up 

my sky is also blue 

   how strange 

      we are   believing 

it’s true   that just because

   we’re far away 

      from each other

we aren’t the same though 

   when you look in a mirror, 

   when you think of me 

       you will see 

                     yourself

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Note: No, that’s not a photo of the midwestern US! 

It’s a beautiful field in Azerbaijan.

Original photo: Havin_HP 

Abuelita, June 2017 (Day 179)

We crossed the border in

a rusted Falcon, on a wheel 

that was starting to go flat. 

A fountain of dust spouted 

behind us, tinting the sky  

terra-cotta where the sun shone,

Powdering our car, skin, food 

with an ancient, ubiquitous grit,

metallic on our tongues, like blood.

Whenever we passed another 

car, truck, any sign of civilization, 

she ducked and covered herself. 

Before the stark mountains, a plain, 

monotony interrupted here and there 

by run-down, sun-broken signs. 

We drove through darkness, wide 

open to the desert air, vibrating

under a million spinning galaxies.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Photo: Rennett Stowe

Ormolu (Day 176)

More than half 

a century 

but it’s ok this way 

to the nostalgia 

show where all the leaves 

are still fresh and new  

money drips from every 

gold-plated faucet 

like maple syrup 

from a jug you hoped 

contained magical 

moonshine 

over the shimmering South

Atlantic where 

an iceberg the size of 

Brunei just broke 

free to dissolve 

slowly in privacy 

and enjoy a bit of sight-

seeing along the road 

to purgatory 

which I always imagined as 

a sort of dark-gray Hell 

but now realize 

is an emerald- and 

sapphire-colored world 

veiled in swathes 

of ice-vapor lace

our bride 

whom we abandoned 

at the altar 

of instant gratification

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Photo: "Midnight in Moscow" by Emilio Labrador

I thought the photo's description was interesting: 

"Elegant lady in suggestive evening attire and without a partner, wanders among the well dressed attendies during the pre-gala cocktail reception held at Mar-A-Lago intended to raise funds for the newly built local clinic and hospital. These year's party theme was a Russian Czar 'Winter Palace'. Mar-A-Lago, Palm Beach, Fl, USA"

Will There Be a Happy Ending? (Day 147)

 

Will there be a happy ending

this time? Will we win

because good always does?

If we can’t hear you,

we can’t see you—

maybe you’re not real.

Can you help us? Will you 

hurt us? Tell us how you feel.

Our hats have always been 

the whitest, spurs have always 

been the brightest, but 

you’re their dark horse and

they fight us everywhere 

we turn. So tell us, 

will there be a happy ending,

or is the ending just beginning?

How can we make sure 

that the good guys win?

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Photo: The Herd Quitter." Oil C.M. Russell (1864–1926), Montana Historical Society MacKay Collection, Helena, MT

They All Say (Day 142)

 

they

all say

they

didn't

they 

did

they

lied 

(c) 2017, By Hannah Six

Doesn't Matter (Day 139)

(Image: Jastrow)

When the clouds turn from 

the distinct shade of rainbow 

sherbet to a mountainous 

violet against the twilight sky, 

it doesn't matter. 

When the neighbor's children 

are rabbits in your garden, 

delighting in the sweet burst 

of sun-glazed tomatoes, 

it doesn't matter. 

And when you feel again 

the torrid, charge of 

a 17-year-old morning, the day 

you finally claimed your freedom, 

it doesn't matter. 

It doesn't even matter when, 

with a pang, you remember how 

you gave it away again, too soon, 

too foolishly in love, too blinded 

by moonlight and stardust. 

This is not to say, mind you, that 

it doesn't matter. Because it does. 

It's just that some things always 

matter more. 

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Photo info:

Tile with two rabbits, two snakes and a tortoise. Illustration for Zakariya al-Qazwini's book, Marvels of Things Created and Miraculous Aspects of Things Existing (13th century). Musée du Louvre.