Author Archives: janishaag

This is a flower, a gift from the earth from which it grows. May you know that the earth provides all you need. May you know beauty, and may all you do be a blessing to the world. You are … Continue reading →

An experiment in driveway poetry (on my driveway). It’s the ending of an older poem, “This season”: But dear one,listen. Breathedeeply, exhale slowly andwith your whole,far-from shaky self,take one trusting stepinto the unknown,and begin again. You can read the whole … Continue reading →

I drive by the big billboard that saysin four-foot-tall Times New Roman: Who adopted who?and the old English professor in me blurts in the car, before I can stop myself,Whom! Who adopted whom! I knew I needed to retire when, … Continue reading →

I’m pretty sure they gather in my back yard,the dead loved ones and the ancestors,chatting quietly in the night, their voices rustling like the susurrationsunder the whispering sycamore leavesbig as bread plates every summer. I lie awake sometimes, listening totheir … Continue reading →

I see you from time to time,jogging down J street as I drive by, and I want to stop, leap outof the car, and holler, “Baby!” As though you came from me,as if, ages ago, I had not had you … Continue reading →

You thought it was what they pay you for,but it turns out that the heart work is the true stuff of a life. That we’rehere to live and grow in love— that’s the real work that cannot bemeasured in hours … Continue reading →

(or One More Reason I Shop at Trader Joe’s) Because, after years of seeing grocery storesigns say, “15 items or less,” these guysget the usage right—not once, but twice, at the same checkout stand.And while they could be accusedof redundancy, … Continue reading →

Sometimes, emerging from the shower,a line flits across my mind like a gnat,and if I don’t snatch it and set it downwhere I can see it, it’s gone. So, toweled and dripping, I let my dampfootprints pad into the nearest … Continue reading →

I am too old for this, I think,open mouthed, as the technicianaffixes tiny pearls to my teethwhere nearly invisible trays will attach,adjusting my bite a half century aftermy parents paid the orthodontist$1,000 to straighten my youthfulchompers. Now I am paying … Continue reading →

(In memory of Nell Lester) The snippet of creeping plantin the pint glass on my kitchen windowsillhas grown wispy roots that wavelike the dangling tentacles of jellyfishor the white-blonde hair of a girlfloating on her back. I was that girl … Continue reading →