A Shadorma for Day 784

Pale pattern 

Snowflakes on concrete

Hesitant

Trembling

Poised between water and ice

Becoming undone

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Image: US Fish & Wildlife Service

We have inherited (Day 783)

we have inherited 

sublime coral clouds   threads 

of red and gold   casually discarded   

  

this desert

burning ocean   collapsed   inert 

abiding in dust-laden darkness     

is ours to mine

rasping furred skin   converging 

with concealed succulence

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

First steps (Day 782)

Know the mud   slippery and cold 

between your toes   rolling toward 

the hard shore   reaching out 

to meet you   to welcome you home

to receive the pale chalk of your bones 

when   at last   you find yourself sliding 

gently back   the murky water closing 

fast and sure over your head   and 

know that the earth will remember 

where you walked  will cherish 

the traces you left behind   

the small round stones kicked aside 

or stacked just so   

the flowers carefully chosen and 

planted where   every morning   the sun 

might kiss them tenderly and say 

I am so happy that you are here at last

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Image: MaxPixel

In June Accents (Day 781)

March, in June accents. 

Softly, faded leaves part 

to spears of rising green. 

Soon, the forest’s papery 

floor will be scattered 

with clusters of crocuses, 

yellow, white, and violet. 

Soon, the last pillows 

of snow will disappear, 

and branches, now bare, 

will recline, draped in 

their late-April finery.

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Those who do not remember (Day 780)

Those who do not remember the past 

are condemned to repeat it. —George Santayana

When the homes of dissenting 

professors are mapped, and 

Victor Hugo dreams of an arrow 

of seven geese pointing toward 

the tilted crescent barely discernible 

in the sky above Nanterre, 

we will wish we had said No.

When, in the wreckage of time, 

beneath a smoke-clotted film 

of unbalanced light, enough 

human life is spilled into French 

fields (where, years later, 

expatriot gentians begin to grow),

we will wish we had said No.

When cities are scoured by wind, 

slicing through concrete layers, 

to the bone echoes of train-platform 

scenes invisible to all but silent 

security cameras and roaming 

packs of dumpster-fed dogs,

we will wish we had said No.

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Image: George Luks, Verdun, France (ca. 1915), 

watercolor on paper, via Wikimedia Commons

On waking from an afternoon nap (Day 779)

Falling upward   toward a glaze 

   of light rippling on the surface

rush of silence  vast  wind in my ears

   shhh   can you hear their whispers 

   through the walls    vague music 

   in the sweep of water through the pipes

   someone is dancing  release the wheel

limbs flailing   inefficient strokes 

   of an inexperienced swimmer   

shimmering disc now nearer  brighter  

distorted sound a song of Sunday 

   morning bells drawing me   

   heart first   back arched   into 

a searing burst of lucid afternoon

and soon I breathe

and soon I see

and the whispers are receding

and the music is silenced with a touch

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Image: PxHere

That Heat (Day 778)

So sweet, that heat

you wish would go away

and yet it stays

those dog days 

you sprawl

disgusted with it all

but right now

it’s fresh and new

the way it was with you

so sweet, that heat

you wish would go away

bittersweet, the way 

you leave  

and yet it stays

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Image: Florine Stettheimer, Heat (1919), 

oil on canvas, via Wikimedia Commons