Author Archives: janishaag

August feels like a deep inhale before the year tilts toward fall.—Carissa Potter We feel the tilting, the planet beginningits annual lean in this hemisphere, the trees already letting go of their shade,though summer has not let go of us … Continue reading →

Thoughts. I have so many. If overthinking was a crime, I’d be serving a life sentence. Maybe a run-on sentence. —T. De Los Reyes, from “Read a Little Poetry” Maybe not a crime, maybe moreof a grammatical sin, though maybe … Continue reading →

Yours was lilac, though you didn’t wear the scent,but planted two in the back yard, walked the slopinggrass to sniff them when they bloomed. Hers was tea—at least to me—she who kept a teadrawer before I did, who loved good … Continue reading →

(for Lindsey and Chuck, bound for England) Clouds stacked up for miles aheadlike planes waiting to land— or flat-bottomed sailboats scuddingacross endless blue— I wanted to follow where they wereheaded, but the road turned southward, and the flotilla continued east,and … Continue reading →

(with apologies to Miss Dickinson) Hope is the thing with flowersthat germinate in the soiland push their way toward the light— and somehow spring into theirshort-lived lives with such joythat we smile every time we see them— and, like the … Continue reading →

Today of all days—the day after another unspeakable actthat is spoken of over and over, joining the chorus of tragedieshumans visit upon each other,the killings and starvings, the bombings and beatings—we think of those in the towerswhen they fell, of … Continue reading →

(Sept. 11, two dozen years later…) So this honey bee lands smack dabin the center of a Mexican sunflowerand sets about doing its business— which is, of course, pollinating—when it is joined by another bee-likeinsect called the hover fly. One … Continue reading →

Mellifluous isn’t on one list, though it is on others.Because it rolls over the tongue so smoothly,it should be highly caloric. But tremulous is, which makes me quiver saying it, andluminous shining its bright self, as well asdiaphanous. All these … Continue reading →

As we assemble our star in the heavenswith every good deed, the smallestbits of kindness deposited like seeds along the paths of others, I findmyself considering how I mightfurnish that star before I get there, what color I’d like it … Continue reading →

As a kid, I used to feel my hopeful heartlift when I’d see the red flap hanging, the one Dad installed below our mailboxon its sturdy post across the street. That meant the mail lady had come,as we called our … Continue reading →