Author Archives: janishaag

When you’re a guest in someone’shome, and they retire before you do, and you, downstairs in the guestroom, realize that it’s dark upstairs, and it’s midnightand you’ve got a yen for a snack, you decide that you’re fine—you don’t want … Continue reading →

Where it has been doing itsCalifornia imitation for months,pretending that this green place, too,is the land of little rain. Where the unirrigated roadsidehas gone golden, like muchof my home state. Where the climate flip-flopslike a just-landed salmon,the migrating ones headingupstream … Continue reading →

(between Kingston and Edmonds, Washington) Today you walk onwhile, underneath you,the four- and two-wheeled ones drive onto the thrumming deck,but you and your friends headup the long, elevated corridor where dozens of passengers maketheir way to long bench seatsor small … Continue reading →

The tree is saying things, in words before words.It says: Sun and water are questions endlessly worth answering.It says: A good answer must be reinvented many times, from scratch.It says: There are more ways to branch than any cedar pencil … Continue reading →

(for the crew of Southwest flight 3361,Sacramento to Seattle, July 24, 2025) We rise in this soaring silver bird,aiming upupup, to a height humanscannot achieve unless encasedin such a magnificent beast. And I think of the early years of airtravel, … Continue reading →

When it’s your birthday month,gifts show up daily—oftena photo card emailed withsome version of your face(so many years of face tochoose from) on it. And one day you come hometo find a box with a bright bluehair dryer waiting for … Continue reading →

…sometimes it is necessaryto reteach a thing its loveliness,to put a hand on its browof the flowerand retell it in words and in touchit is lovelyuntil it flowers again from within, of self-blessing… —Galway Kinnell, from “St. Francis and the … Continue reading →

(for Gail and Amy) Odd things appear on the kitchen windowsill—this week two apricot pits that,if I had a compost pile, should go there,or perhaps tossed with the loose teain the flowerbed where the rangy volunteersmight find some sustenancein my … Continue reading →

Recall, friend,the thaw, the liftof elaborate freeze, the throb of salt,the steamof belong. Chant the cycleof ache, the curlof caress. How the blazeflew into overwhelm,with no regard for you, who gaveall to the onewho would abscond with your heart. ••• … Continue reading →

(for Donna and our parents) I never expected to see it,much less run across the roadon a trip home throughthe mountains, but came upon it veering offOmo Ranch Road, this forestedpiece of property our parentsbought decades ago, sold to the … Continue reading →