Author Archives: janishaag

Place moonlight in a bowl.Sleep beside anddream of white flowers. —Sandra Cisneros Allow that creamy liquid,truly moonshine, to dream youinto a place you cannot go awake. Let white flowers cushion you,ones you can’t always namebut surprise you each spring, ones … Continue reading →

that the big thing that’s slitheringjust under the surface is notthere slithering, that thing we don’t want to talk about,perhaps a slimy, annoying, upsetting,creep-you-out thing, has disappeared, kaput, poof! so thatall that’s left is you looking at me,me looking at … Continue reading →

Set up a shop the color of banana.Cram it full of books and a window seat ripe for reading, tucked into a London alleyso you have to search for it, delighted when you find it, reveling in the sweetnessof banana, … Continue reading →

And so it isthe day after Easter,a similarly gorgeous day,warm and dry at long last,spring blasting out of ground and trees and skywith look-at-me insistence. And we do.We cannot look away, nor do we want to,finally released from what has … Continue reading →

for Joe Chan, with thanks and admiration They dive in or burst out of brick buildings,cascade over a meadow, backlight a majesticoak tree at sunset, reflect on the watersof a river called American under a bridgenamed Rainbow. You capture elusive … Continue reading →

And now,the piercing lossof the belovednewly goneeases a wee bit as you walk pasttulips standing atattention, as loose-lipped blossomswaggle a springy hello, dazzling scarlet,happy yellow, softsalmon, flamingpoppies flashingtheir bellies to the sky. They stop you,bend you closer—life eternal rightthere, the … Continue reading →

The song you heard singing in the leaf when youwere a childis singing still. — Mary Oliver from “What Can I Say?” If you bend near or stretch tall,put your ear close to the baby budbusily working to evolve—perhaps one … Continue reading →

for Dick Schmidt Only in a Hawaiian hospital,where he and I lodged for a fortnight,could one find tight white rice slabstopped with fried Spam drizzledin teriyaki sauce, bound in acrinkly green ribbon of seaweed. And after another mostly sleeplessnight—up every … Continue reading →

It will not always look like this,I remind myself as I walk, the lakeedging toward full, the bluest blue sky,the loose fringe of clouds over the hills. What I will miss most all too soonis when the green goes gold, … Continue reading →

From where I stand, sun-facing,toes-rising, hands chair-rooted,I study the black bird that flutters its way to the top of the treethree yards down from Marilyn’swhere Shelley bounces us oldies on the lawn through an hour’sworkout to the oldies. Focus on … Continue reading →