Vinland Song (Day 634)

where blue ice cleaves 

the sea she waits and I

the one who chose 

might ever be departed 

no one else must 

know our blood spilled 

rose-red on unmarred snow 

we vowed and yet 

so far from home 

am I in unmarked lands 

so unprepared 

to hand my life away 

just now    the fire 

sings a lullabye 

and I draw near 

to see her face 

within the flames

the dream I seek will come 

tonight same as it always does

the sun has risen and 

she waits for me 

with hands outstretched 

toward an endless sea

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Russell Wills

Writing on you (Day 633)

Today, I am writing on you, 

my pen’s nib pillowing into 

your soft skin, a tiny puddle 

of ink, hardly more than a speck, 

dots the hollow of your throat, 

where my thumb fits, just so, 

the skin soft and tender, 

anticipating my touch. 

My line curves from the corner 

of your eye, to the side 

of your mouth that quirks up 

just before you smile. 

Across the firm expanse of your 

back, my signature, a spider's 

web, intertwined with leaves and 

vines, the faintest scar. 

Then, where a flower might bloom, 

I allow my pen to linger, and slowly, 

carefully add your name to mine.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Prehistoric hand stencils at the Cuevas 

de las Manos upon Río Pinturas, near the town of 

Perito Moreno in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina.

Mariano (CC BY-SA 3.0)/Wikimedia Commons

I am bare branches (Day 632)

I am bare branches, streaked with moss 

and damp-darkened, north-facing shadows.

I am that secret place—there, all the way up 

—where a bird's nest rested securely through 

a summer’s worth of thunderstorms, and 

where, now, only a few strands of yellowing 

weeds waver in the wind.

I am a shade-strewn evening porch, overlooking 

an emerald expanse of tender grass, 

soon to be blanketed by a crystal sheet of ice 

or the white-hot kiss of winter's first snow.

I am the unwritten poem, rising, subsiding, 

always just out of sight, known but unrecognizable, 

a season of shifting light and midnight frost, 

of dreams lost to the joy of waking, and, this time, 

I am taking my own sweet time.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Hernán Piñera/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

When you think of me (Day 631)

So, when you think of me,

am I sleeping? 

Am I awake, eyes pressed 

against the darkness,

trying to see into tomorrow?

When you think of me, 

am I alone? Is it a sad, 

spinsterish solitude? 

Or maybe my aloneness is 

tinged with the coolness 

of the crone? Am I content? 

Or do I fret and suffer 

in your thoughts? Do I 

cry or laugh? Shuffle or stride?

And then again, I wonder, 

and perhaps you wonder too, 

whether, you really ought to 

think of me at all.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Looking Out the Window (1908),

by Peter Vilhelm Ilsted via Wikimedia Commons

Face Forward (Day 630)

underside of day

face forward 

only way to find the road 

ahead   illuminated 

by taillights and 

(sometimes) by stars 

eyes wide open   hands on 

the wheel   driving through 

cloudbanks of doubt 
and the darkest wanderings

of a quiet mind   no map 

to guide you   no map can 

guide you   ahead: is that
a bridge or a sigh? 

either will carry you 

where you are headed   

where you are going   

where you need to be

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Pexels

Haiku for Day 629

Unfurling autumn wisdom 

Against deepening night, wings beat

Somewhere, rain begins to fall

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

...so resilient (Day 628)

Waving goodbye 

to those days at the beach

to your first morning of summer vacation

to the faintly-spicy air of impending autumn

and the scent of freshly opened crayons 

   in that daffodil-papered kitchen. 

The final box stowed.

The last turn of that particular key

   in that tricky lock.

You’ll have your own room!

You’ll get to make new friends!

You will have so much exploring to do!

Looking back through the rear window,

you sigh, and, protectively, decide not to tell 

them they’re not fooling you. After all: 

Resilience is a dish best served cold. 

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Quintin Gellar/Pexels