Author Archives: janishaag

(for Clifford) I imagine you’ve been keeping an eyeon things from your spot in the mystery twenty-five years after your departure,watching our front yard transform from a rectangular swath of lawn (to be generous)known for its impressive annual crop of … Continue reading →

My friend the Master Gardener shows mehow to properly transplant the wee ones we brought home yesterday, which makes merealize that I’ve fumbled through the process for decades. I do know to gently removethe immigrant from the only home it … Continue reading →

(for Lindsey Holloway) We chart a course through a vast sea of sprigsgreening from small pots to which my friendthe Master Gardener has brought me. As we sail down aisles and ooh and ahh overthe miracle of so many varieties … Continue reading →

After I gave up that car andretired the license plates, I hammered one into the grayingredwood that is the back fence. The nearby rose bush prunedfor winter means that I can see the plate without surroundingfoliage for a while, which … Continue reading →

After a mid-afternoon linnerat a spot down the river road thatfeels as if we’re miles away fromour city, we cross the Freeport Bridgeto another county and headsouth for some miles, the riverto the port side on a spring Saturday that … Continue reading →

“Oh, God, no”—the half-prayerburst out of me when I saw theseverely pruned wisteria over the driveway trellis. I’d askedMiguel, the efficient garden god,to take the tangled limbs in hand, and boy, did he. It was January,and it occurred to me … Continue reading →

What I rememberis that they were heavy,the pair of crash cymbals, and picking up the twobig discs tonight at bandpractice reminded me that parts of me usedto be in much bettershape, younger parts I never had to think about,like hands … Continue reading →

Her helmet is gold, his is black,and when she leans her body left to speak into his ear at stoplights,they look like side-by-side bowling balls. That was, for a moment, me, sans braid,risking my neck—and far more than that— along … Continue reading →

I always think of you as the blue gal,drawn toward turquoises and teals, even a soft baby blue. And today undera spring-blue sky, I made my way out to what was your house to drop off giftsfor your descendants who … Continue reading →

Because I didn’t want to miss the lastof the early wildflowers,and because it was such a perfect, blue-sky day,and because I knew the lake surface would runto cobalt under that sky,and, suspecting that the water would bequite high, which it … Continue reading →