Outside of Time (Day 510)

Have you ever sat 

outside of time? 

Eternal, immobile as 

a towering mountain? 

Felt the wind ruffle 

your hair, the same 

way it tousles leaves 

in old-growth forests? 

Quiet, still, knowing 

where and when you 

are, being everywhere, 

always. Just you, and 

your willingness to let 

go, allowing your hard 

edges to soften and 

melt into the sinuous 

estuary of which you 

are but a drop.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: PxHere

Try It Now (Day 508)

How many tones ring 

in your ears when 

you silence Them?

When you uninvite 

Them from the daily

celebration that is 

your morning coffee?

When you mute Their 

urgent, insincere pleading 

and fearmongering?

Do you suddenly 

hear papery leaves

—mere buds, last time 

you noticed them—

rustling in the whisper 

of a breeze?

How many heartbeats, 

before eternity settles 

back into your center?

Until the exquisite 

smallness of the everyday 

smooths the lines of

tension from your brow? 

Try it now, and 

count yourself 

among the blessed.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Winslow Homer, Girl in a Hammock, 1873

Oil on canvas, Colby Museum of Art (via Wikimedia Commons)

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

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

Haiku for Day 380

bourbon-amber world tilts

sliding down that coffee-sweet glass

in crestfallen octaves

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Roger Peterson, US Forest Service

Haiku for Day 378

The vagrant light drifts.

A breeze slips through long grasses.

Stirring, wonder sighs.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Longed for (Day 363)

night imploded 

into sleek weeks 

of longed-for lethargy 

a million stars became 

months of quiet musings 

yet in the end it was not 

my lover blackberry-ripe 

with unnewsworthy stories 

who constrained my heart 

it was my friend

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Pixabay

Sole Transformation (Day 360)

no longer is this 

our sole transformation

this agonizing feint 

so special so beautiful 

trusting in the lingering 

bands of shadows 

from stands of tulip trees

a story that may not be 

objectified 

best left in its natural state 

without humor 

or self-deprecation 

the vibrant location 

never required 

a single elaboration

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Vincent van Gogh, Farmhouse in Provence, 1888, 

oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Angel (Day 359)

Hands flower heat expands

Mist annoints an oatmeal angel

One poised dewdrop succeeds

Sirens call joy children pout

Suddenly brown petals play

Torn committees flutter

Green shadows tax the humid wind

Nearby frogs are chiding

(c) 2018 by Hannah Six 

Image: pixel2013/Pixabay

Serengeti Love Song (Day 357)

Girraffes can be

terribly romantic, 

intimate with 

the nuances of love. 

Until I met you,

eyelashes melting 

in the sub-Saharan rain,

I lived for years  

doubting whether 

this was true.

Yet there you were,

velvet nose

buried in sweet acacia,

ossicones gold with pollen,

the mighty thrumming

of your powerful heart 

like a distant drum,

luring me.

I longed to nuzzle 

your pale neck, 

to count the hot brown 

patches strewn across 

your hide, and sighed,

Alas.

But at this humble sound, 

your ears pricked up, 

your brown eyes softened, 

and time seemed

to trip and stumble. 

Later—with the taste

of your hot urine mingling 

with rain upon my 

bruise-tinged tongue—

we wondered at a love 

so vast that it could 

barely be contained within 

the rippling boundaries of 

our sweeping Serengeti Plain.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: 12019/Pixabay

• Giraffe FAQs: https://giraffeconservation.org/faqs/ 
• Types of giraffes: https://giraffeconservation.org/giraffe-species/
• “Fun facts about giraffe sex...” (which involves a mouthful of urine): https://www.popsci.com/giraffe-reproduction-birth-live-stream

Feels Like May [Day 356]

Deep in February’s chill

it feels like May might never bloom,

but even in the darkest room,

light lingers longer every day,

and bitter winter cannot stay

forever, tempt it as you will.

Soon spiders, with their silver strands,

will spin new homes with certain flair,

And house-finch songs will float on air 

Above the lilting mockingbird,

And spring, more now than a mere word,

Will enchant the lifeless land.

Meanwhile, resist the icy slope—

Don’t let despair obscure bright hope.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: pixundfertig/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

Upriver (Day 352)

They say fondness 

makes the heart 

grow absent.

Well, you’re miles away 

in a driving rain,   

telling me you’re sorry 

from the middle 

of a desert, 

under a flotilla 

of amethyst clouds.

Never again will I let on 

that I love you—

you never believed me

when I said it out loud.

You built your dam upriver 

from my valley, and 

that water’s not going 

to trickle down again.

The shadows grow longer 

even earlier now, and 

we’ll never be as green 

as we were back then.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Skeeze via 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

Is Beauty (Day 337)

Stars on sapphire sky, 

bouyant origami boats,

folded from paper money

—is beauty desire?

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Blue Tide, Bruce Anderson 

(University of Stellenbosch)

Stalk (Day 334)

here  so delicately 

breaking that bright green

tendril  the interloper  

stalks swagging thick  

swarming over branches left 

sweating in water-air  dribbling 

into depths of dromedary 

bliss  learn deeply 

to kiss this odd laughing 

fountain  look back like catfish 

after dark  learning that neither 

crickets nor fireflies glow 

here  so delicately 

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: GSmith via Wikimedia Commons

He Cannot Pronounce Her Name (Day 311)

Unsayable, a scree of consonants

piled up at the base, he cannot

pronounce her name. Love, dear,

darling, forever come simply and

easily as sugar in coffee, 

the way she fixes it for him 

in the morning while he showers, 

rinsing off the night’s dreams, 

that dark oily scent clinging 

to the steam, making his mouth 

water like it does when he wants

 to kiss her unglossed lips 

the way they are in the morning 

when she wakes up, rosy 

and puffy with sleep, warm 

as a winter fire after a midnight walk 

on new snow, when the world 

glows bright as a full moon, 

and the drifts shimmer, casually

heaped against the fences,

already pitted, collapsing 
like those consonants at the end 
of her name, which he cannot, 
could never, pronounce.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Skeeze via Pixabay