Blue is the Hour (Day 169)

Blue 

is the hour 

when you 

come home,

the twilit moment 

when, alone, I 

put down my pen

and turn 

inside-out

toward 

the window,

gauging the light,

delighting in 

the soft summer 

sparkle of fireflies,

before you 

arrive.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Photo: Oia, Santorini: Blue Hour, Pedro Szekely

A moment, driving (Day 155)

 

The hills stand, black, 

against a silver sky,

Dust rides hot wind

where combines cut 

the grass 

beside the highway. 

The air takes on 

a ripe and leathery 

scent, rich patina on

the maturing day. 

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Photo: Matt Duncan via Pexels.com

Between (Day 152)

Between light and dark

As fireflies are rising

We fall together

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

You Come Back To Me (Day 146)

 Katja, on hand-crocheted ripple blanket

In the strong line of my pen, 

you come back to me—

playful, an acrobat, more sure 

of your skill than I, but you

prove yourself, and, high 

above us find a view that 

inspires your frequent high-wire 

displays, much to my dismay. 

In the light of a midnight moon, 

you come back to me—

ghostly presence just beyond 

my toes, leading me through 

darkness on the route I always 

follow, then you take me back 

to bed and perch, a quiet 

presence, near my head, and 

I slip into sleep hearing you

purr, my fingers tangled in 

your luxurious fur. 

In the still moments before I wake,

you come back to me—again, 

alight in the rose-gold morning 

glow, solemn, silly, cherished 

little friend, somehow you 

always know my dreams are 

at an end, my eyes about to open, 

and, mysterious as joy, you’re 

there to meet me, the sweetest 

way to greet another day.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Read Widely (Day 143)

Photo: Library in the Jewish Cemetery Krems in Krems in Austria Anton-kurt

read widely and 

cultivate

manners (compassion)

a dry sense of 

humor

civility (kindness) 

which isn't at all 

the same

resolution (conversation)

as cynicism 

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

And Yet... (Day 141)

Washington, DC (Image courtesy NASA GSFC, MITI, ERSDAC, JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team)

And yet, the world 

is lush with summer promises, 

is emerald grass and flowering trees, 

and rustlings amidst the leaves. 

And yet, the sky 

is vast, a polished tourmaline,

with gentle puffs of unshed rain, 

and cottontails nibbling new growth.

And yet, the morning,

filled with song, is fresh and new, 

is sunrise gold that winds along

to fireflies and starry nights. 

And yet, the days still pass, 

and languid rivers melt their shores, 

and jagged peaks grow soft and old, 

nothing lasts forever—

And yet, the world.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

He Really Means... (A silly senryu for Day 136)

Please don't confuse me with That Man!

Trump: Science is fake

Trump: Putin is my hero

Trump: I hate poor folk

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Indifference (Day 135)

Photo: NASA

Indifference turns Its back 

toward the fern embellished wall.

How poverty offends them.

False, soft voices rise and fall, 

like joy. A liquid starless 

sky obscures—rivers flood 

but truth is scarce.

Fragrant lies glissade, stirring 

ancient broken landscapes.

Forests will replace these things,

vast oceans will diminish fools.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Grain of Sand (Day 133)

 

I dreamt I 

was a grain 

of sand 

in a hand 

holding on 

too tightly and 

woke

tumbling into 

the dunes.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

(Original image source unknown)

Grand Lady (Day 125)

 

Abandoned House, Hagerstown MD

Never a grand lady,

Like those northern upstarts. 

You were even, perhaps, 

A bit careworn, compared 

With your neighbors, whose 

Fresh red confidence eclipsed 

Your plain-Jane simplicity. 

Or was your appearance 

Purposely misleading? 

You might have jealously 

Guarded the golden joy pulsing 

In your veins, familiar warmth 

Radiating comfortably 

To the scrolled tip of each 

finely-turned bone. Glimpses

Of your elegant strength,

Your faultless honesty, 

Your unwavering generosity 

—Visible only to those who 

Knew you, or who thought to look 

Beyond the customary trimmings—

Gifts you bestowed intimately,

Their secrecy lending them 

A covetable air of pricelessness.



(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Idle Fumes (Day 121)

Photo: B137 via Wikimedia Commons

cars idle fumes rise 

like steam 

parking lot black with sun 

hazy overhead   

cashier said we're due 

for storms when it gets this warm 

and wind circles like a half-blind 

shark in shallow water 

waves of exhaust_ion swell

building underfoot 

like melting tar 

but no 

that's the slow freight 

graffitied cars oily 

reverberating through 

the kudzu

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Hopeful Tanka (Day 119)

Feathered choristers pray.

Short notes whirl above the flutes.

The shining wings beat.

A temple of new leaves swings.

Hope gathers on the horizon.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Sweet photo by Frank Schulenburg, "House Finch (Haemorhous mexicanus) with an Oregon Junco in Strawberry, California"

Words Fail (Day 118)

Some days the words fail
You refusing to come home
Leaving the Muse alone
With silence
Like a barren page



(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Unstoppable (Day 116)

Cicada husks 

obscured the walkway 

an exoskeletal patina 

pecan-dark and crunchy 

Howling she stomped out 

the pointless icons 

unstoppable as 

a howling December flood 

Behind mullioned windows 

the family's lesser matron 

pausing in the middle of her tea 

pronounced:

Hoarding words in a notebook 

is not the same as preparing 

for an inevitable future

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

How We Talk Now (Day 115)

(Travel Journal Page, Laura Mandelbaum)

How we talk now 

text now thoughts through 

hands thumbs screen 

like pen on paper 

no midnight scent of ink

or glide of gold nib soft 

as caramel on a slick  

old-fashioned journal page

we can write in bed 

or on the train or in the car or 

simply speak 

our stories lives letters

poetry on the page 

in our own voices 

different voices careless 

boisterous silly strong   

tongue fingers thumbs 

an accent different from 

the gentle rolling 

hybrid print and cursive

that I used to write 

my father's mother like 

notes dashed off to mine 

now love dispatched 

post haste with 

a few taps of my thumbs

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Turning Toward (Day 114)

Sunrise, Murray Foubister

What I remember most 

is how much harder 

we find it to turn,

intentionally, toward love, 

joy, attention, than 

to sink into the alluring 

quicksand of anger, 

dismay, and apathy—

and how the urgency 

of this turning  

is so elegantly attuned to 
the often-monumental 

effort of doing so.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

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

Trio (Day 85)

Lofty metals clash.
Waltz of sparks spiral skyward.
Searing swarms duel.

Sweet old melody.
Sheets of lullabies beckon.
Sleep deep as a well.

An old welder talks.
Their last child grown, leaving home.
He takes his wife's hand.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Let Me (Day 69)

Let me
            help
                    hold
sing to             cry for
you
     know
    that the water I offer
will be soft
        cool
             quenching
     that the fire in my heart
will burn
    blue as lightning
                               as tears
music             bruises
will heal
      your heart
           when you lose
what         holds you      up
will
will not
       soften
            in unbreakable time
which will
      continue to pass
without
      feeling
            like a dream
you        will
                    outlast
this

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

***No human being is illegal.***

Image: Ojibwa village at Sault Ste. Marie in 1846, Paul Kane (1810-71)

Where the Truth is Written (Day 61)

 

I can hardly see the trees anymore, let alone 

the forest, floor composed of fallen leaves,

a century's worth of organic debris, perhaps more
than I care to count anyway
you look at it, the truth is written in 

  the pattern of your missing hair, 

  the blue now faded from your eyes, 

  the spaces between the razor thin lines etched
    into the back of your hands,
  the rings you no longer wear
    on fingers so swollen from typing
    lies, that they no longer fit

your purpose now, as you can see,

is to reach the bold red X on the corner
of your map, where you imagine treasure awaits
discovery by a conquistador of your stature, you 

won't find contentment there, though,

the demise of longing, your old companion 

about whom you could elucidate, wax poetic,
compose sad songs while sipping wine
in a cafe, but no, we'd rather never hear 

some lonesome tale of martyrdom

embellished as it would surely come

from between your truth-parched lips.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six