Author Archives: janishaag

(Lake Tahoe, west shore) Red hammockunder tall Jeffrey pinesset against bluest blue, I eye a soaring specimenthat divides in twoforty feet up. Like us, one trunk,two offshoots,still reaching for sky—evenas we add morerings to our core, around ourincreasing middles,surprisingly strong … Continue reading →

As I type with my eyes closed, as I often do, I think of my favorite high school teacher who made me type and retype student reporters’ stories onto clean, half sheets of newsprint. In the mid-1970s I was the … Continue reading →

(Lake Tahoe, west shore,in memory of Margery Thompson) Five days after you die,we head to the Big Blue,the high mountain lakewhere all manner ofspirits live, and now,we imagine, you havejoined them. The Wa-She-Shu,the ancestral people,migrated here eachsummer from the hotCarson … Continue reading →

(for Rebecca) Once again, after the quietexplosion of death, the presence of the belovedpersists, as companion spirits do, lingering in the present tensenear those who cherish them. We cannot yet think in the “was,”as we sink into the after-space that … Continue reading →

(Lake Tahoe, west shore) On the second day at the lakea storm warning and propheticgraying skies, rimmed by a hintof light over the mountainsto the east. Sure enough, about mid-afternoon,I walk to the same spot overlookingthe beach, where yesterday beamedwith … Continue reading →

(Lake Tahoe, west shore,Labor Day 2025) You are here—me, too—by the Big Blue that is so cold…(how cold is it?).I remember two little girls who grewup next to what theyconsidered “their” lake, who were longago brought to thisginormous one situated … Continue reading →

That, when I bent over and kissed her cheek as she lay on the sofa—the spot from which she would not rise the next morning—I didn’t say, aloha nui loa, mahalo nui loa—much love, many thanks. That I didn’t say … Continue reading →

In late August when the sycamorestarts tossing leaves brittled byunrelenting sun, I’m alwayssurprised to find the lawnlittered with the dead anddying. It happens annually,but it feels unseasonably early. I’ve called this sycamore minefor 38 summers. Perhapsour real purpose is not … Continue reading →

“It’s always more fun to eat out,”I tell my neighbor whose kittywanders down to my porch most mornings. “Hi, Hercules,”I say, as he sits politelybut expectantly, waiting for breakfast. Sometimes dinner.It’s not that he doesn’tget fed at home, his mom … Continue reading →

That’s the pisser—the dilemma with noeasy resolution, no good answer:when to hold on,when to let go. We are a holding-onspecies, reluctantletter-goers, especially when ourtender heartsache with loss. We want this oneback, never wantedthat one to go, the clench of griefsqueezing … Continue reading →