Haiku for Day 810

Darkness diminished.

Twisted vines, indifferent.

New, fragrant life burns.

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Image: Frederick Carl Frieseke, Cherry Blossoms (1913), 

oil on canvas, via Wikimedia Commons

Spring Tanka (Day 449)

Deep, full breath of spring.

Windows thrown open at last.

Even the house sighs.

The peach blossoms assure me:

This is not a rehearsal.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Photo: PxHere

Behind Him (Day 443)

he hasn’t met her 

yet   but when he looks 

back   he sees her 

there   behind him   

just around the corner 

he just rounded   and 

before him 

is the woman he knew 

yesterday   who is 

no longer someone 

he knows   but someone 

he has yet to meet

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: MaxPixel

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

Books Suit Me (Day 438)

books suit me like navy blue

I am told   choosing is simple 

akin to buying this small house

remember when you looked 

inside all those hollow sugar 

Easter eggs   too small or large

too hot or too cold  too close or

too far away   you were afraid 

no one would come to admire 

your lush garden on Sundays 

or read my favorite novel    after 

I’m gone you’ll find it falls open 

to the passage that inspires and

comforts me   like those photos 

of the old you   the fragrance of

libraries   this small hollow house

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Liz West/Flickr

Earth Day, 2017 (Day 94)

Earth Day, 2017 (Day 94)

heavy tilting planet

senses the shift    coming 

    of concrete 

and day    thick and shadeless 

concave sidewalk 

    knows 

ramrod feet from breathing 

tree   kind    houses retract

bleached neighborhood    sky white 

    beneath 

the world    thus 

causing    one lean   imagined 

dimension of pretty 

    spinning flatness

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Note: Photo is an edited version of one taken by Philip Grimshaw

One Word (Day 93)

 

week of one 

     word

floods us    you 

can't argue with  
these    things 

     spiral out 

of control 

     and love

filters out expertise 

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Private Ballet (Day 92)

Streaming rivers of silk,

We performed a private ballet,

Seeing ourselves on stage, 

Inhabiting our own glory.

Hands clasped, toes turned out,

We bowed to wild applause,

Lingering in the dream,

Reluctant to give up the story.

(c) by Hannah Six




*Photo: Tatiana Riabouchinska, one of the leading ballerinas of the 1930's, darns a ballet slipper (via Wikimedia Commons)

Seven Days (Day 91)

 

More than seven days have passed— 

Turned to dandelion fluff and floated, 

Wafted on the April wind—since

This silence bloomed and filled my head. 

From dawn to dark, I waver in a dream, 

Safe from words and whispers, I imagine, 

Surely, in another week will fade.

(c) 2013, by Hannah Six

Yellowjackets (Day 88)

 

Image: Sankyaku

Yellowjacket

             circling, 

always three 

     times, 

before 

     moving on 

             to more 

    manageable prey:

a succulent beetle 

     or a crumb 

dropped by 

some long-ago hiker 

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Backpacking with Madame Bovary (Day 84)

I am stretched out on
the floor of an unzipped tent,
reading Madame Bovary,
while the nylon sides
breathe in
and out,
each inhalation
and exhalation ending with
a muffled pop,
like distant sails on a blue bay.
A hot afternoon stretches
ahead of and behind me,
baking dust and melting
pine resin a delicate incense
gently teasing the dry breeze.
I, however, am
a century away, in a country
where no one speaks
my mother tongue,
flirting and curtseying
and yearning and knowing
each character's heart
as well
as I know my own.
But, the pleasure
of my company is requested,
on a foray in search of wild
trout for dinner,
and I realize my hair is damp
against my neck,
so I roll over, stretch,
unfurl myself from the floor
with the effortlessness
of nineteen years,
and bid Flaubert adieu
until nightfall, when
my flashlight and I will answer
the siren call of Madame Bovary—
and the tragedy of her
unfulfilled heart—once more.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Red Delicious (Day 79)

Source: US Dept of Agriculture*

Red delicious, the color 

of fall, of the garnet ring 

I used to wear, dreaming 

myself into fathomless 

depths, where flashes 

of amber mingled with 

the sweetness 

of late summer 

cherries—the colors, 

I thought, of a midnight sky, 

viewed through a glass 

of Gamay. Or, perhaps, a Merlot...

No matter. 

I treasure the shawl, knit 

with my own grateful hands 

in a pattern of diamond lace. 

But the ring? One day 

a jeweler shattered the stone 

and replaced it with one 

dark as sin, and opaque 

as the heart of the long-ago man 

who presented it to me. 

So I pawned it. 

Now, by the fire, in my red 

woolen shawl, I consider 

the ring and the man

and I think:

Good riddance to all bad apples.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

*	Artist: Mary Daisy Arnold, ca. 1873-1955. In collection of USDA.

Every Single Parakeet (Day 77)

He flicked the tip of his cigarette 

into a crystal ashtray—a wry object, 

he thought—and continued: 

"People believe the most 

expensive sentences they read, 

wanting to know what's inside 

every single parakeet and canary,

what's happening in the past, 

in apricot nectar, and in Barbie's Dream 

Machine." The other guests nodded. 

One woman's steely bob swung 

forward and backward 

with each movement 

of her head, mesmerizing him. 

"Now, we turn to strategy instead 

of chopsticks," she said. "It's consistent,  

it's complicated, clean and direct, 

its everything to everyone." 

A moment of silence 

as twelve wineglasses were raised, 

as the scent of sophisticated 

pondering filled the room, like lilies 

on a hot day. A flushed, jovial man 

proposed a toast: "Do the right thing. 

Sign up—there's no reason not to!" 

The hostess sighed. Not for a moment 

had the gentle tapping 

of her fingernail on the table 

been interrupted.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

April Haiku (Day 76)

Morning rain dissolves
Sudden burst of sun, blue sky
Second dawn today



(c) 2017, by Hannah Six