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

Lazy Meadows (Day 157)

 

Voluptuous 

moisture greens 

lazy meadows,

layered 

with haze and 

sunbeams,

thinly-sliced by 

the bittersweet 

perfume 

of decaying 

leaves.  

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Photo: Tuolumne Meadow, by Steve Dunleavy

In a Flash (Day 148)

 

And then, in a flash, 

she is gone,

And so is the song 

she was singing.

Now is it too late

—am I wrong—

to long for a cracked 

old bell's ringing?

(c) 2017 by Hannah Six

Photo: National Park Service. Thanks to some super-smart Penn State students, you can hear what the Liberty Bell would sound like if it could still ring.

Twelve Shooting Stars (Day 145)

 

Lazily undulating furrows stretch, 

an exotic love song, under 

the missing quarter moon

on this long and silky, rainy night. 

Twelve shooting stars will fall 

unseen, while Jupiter's 

murderous glow burns, fierce, behind 

the weary sky. Wandering, later, 

out to the fallow field, eyes still 

dreamy, breathing shallow, 

lightning barely flickers at the edge, 

the dozing sheep grow restive, 

mumbling their deepest fears to us, 

and one another. Deep blue ozone 

tints the balmy breath that gathers up 

the rain-slicked chestnut leaves, and 

whispers timeless secrets 

in our ears, to warm us on a distant 

winter night, when we'll dream 

of lullabies that only trees can hear.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Photo: Chris Rand, Star falling into the aurora over the Kewaunee River, Wisconsin 

We Were Willing (Day 137)

Photo courtesy Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries

Can we redream our-

selves    hybridize 

our opposite 

   attractions  strong emotions 

we were willing 

once—

but now 

the poles are shifting

compass points

   great pendulums

are swinging  

while we 

sleep   wake   work 

    make  

       appointments   art    love 

everyone is busy 

   knowing what 

everyone else is busy 

   feeling  thinking  saying

all the time   nothing 

is reserved or spared   

  opinions   stories   images

are shared

  without discretion  

we weren't made for this  

  a captive audience

    who never chose

our shows

    nor bought our tickets 

yet what cost 

we pay

we pay

and no one ever asks 

permission

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

On This Day (Day 134)

 

On this day, 

in another year,

one so distant 

from the here and now, 

it might as well be 

a foreign country, she 

held his hand 

and told herself that he 

was holding her's. 

They danced a bit, 

and drank a few 

prohibited libations, and 

then they danced 

some more. He tripped 

the light fantastic 

like a movie star, and 

dipped her so far down, 

her sable hair kissed

the gritty dance floor

—made of real Norwegian 

pine, which was, 

they heard, the kind 

that all the best clubs 

used—and when 

the band was packing up, 

they bundled into his 

father's Ford, and parked 

up in the hills, where the night 

was bright with stars, 

and their friends were 

in the other cars, and then

he gently held her hand, 

and told himself 

that she was holding his.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Just Wait (Day 112)

I did this. 

I was happy to do 

something 

for the front 

in those early days.

I cannot remember 

the year, but 

I do remember 

a deeply-textured dividing,

and everything else.

My original focus—

I did finishing.

It was the work 

they offered.

It inspired me,

and I still think fondly 

of the photo 

of the original body 

and of the drape. 

It has stood 

the test of time, and I 

am more than pleased.

Four long decades have passed

since my favorite career.

I think I still have great instincts.

Just wait. You'll see what I mean.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Gold Stars (Day 111)

Fourteen-karat 

     stars—

gold as his 

     watch (already too 
     long),

his fountain 

     pen (overused), 

his ormolu 

     furniture, taking up 

valuable real estate, 

     the like of which 

he has never sold

—none will be 

given to those 

with dirty hands 

and failing grades.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Shrill Bones (Day 110)

Shrill  bones 

and  feathers   strange 

unnatural  silence   long 

cold  weeks 

producing  sudden 

change   timid  voices 

soothe  and  

promise  meaning   

all  charges 

suddenly  dropped   and

broken

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Tempest (Day 103)

Photo: Craig Lindsay

Thunderheads

piling high over the Appalachians, 

shades of 

old bruises: gunmetal, lavender,   

restless air quivers, 

birds swirl, like 

autumn leaves falling skyward,

suddenly: stillness

poised before the tempest's bittersweet 

atonement, 

absolving the world of its sins

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six