Author Archives: janishaag

(for Cliff) I plant a single tomato plant in your memory,a slender sprig about a foot tall that will,if she follows the directions on her little stake,produce small, torpedo-shaped orbsperfect for plucking and poppingin the mouth. Her name, according to … Continue reading →

(for Rose Varesio on her birthday) we are wild particles of timewhirling to find each other as we drift apartour lives sharpened and made widerif we can survive the velocity of love —maria popova ••• Love speeds by us and … Continue reading →

Plant something, suggests a wiser mindthan mine. Which I’ve been doing.Literally. And when the noise of cruelty and oppression,of war and meanness vibrates through melike a tuning fork, I go to the nursery. As if I need more plants.Bring them … Continue reading →

Bee daisy, too,bee butterfly bush,though the fragrant purple spears haveyet to make theirappearance. All kinds of bees—fat fuzzy ones,lithe black ones, bee-like hoverflies withtheir three pairs of commastattooed on their backs— all pollinators seducedby the come-hitherblossoms begging for a fly-by. … Continue reading →

The companion spirit who knows me bestdrops in at the oddest times, often witha can’t-miss-this message that might as well be a burning bush. Drivingdown H Street toward home, I see onthe rear end of a Toyota pickup: TELUWHT Reading … Continue reading →

becomes home, no matter how long we lived there,long enough for some to set down slender tendrils of roots or far longer so as to embed ourselves in the earth,whether welcoming loam for growing things or hardpan or desert or … Continue reading →

Riding the elevator downto the basement, the universitymusic professor warns that it mightfeel a little creepy down there. Though I spent time with bandsand percussion instruments in thisbuilding more than a half century ago,I’ve not been in its bowels. But … Continue reading →

but it’s still a chair,reads the sign tapedto one of the blue ones at the poetry center,the message a poem itself,though maybe more a koan, which I doubt someonemeant it to be, thoughyou never know— poetry found everywhere,after all, especiallyduring … Continue reading →

Words aren’t coming—no big dealif you write or not, doesn’t matteron this blustery, rainy day. And then something nudges youto stuff your stubborn feet into purplerubber boots, don the rain jacket and hat, consider, then discard,the idea of umbrella as … Continue reading →

We sometimes think that stunningend-of-day skies happen onlyat the edges of the Earth, ideally standing on a spit of landor sand by the ocean, wheresome unseen hands watercolor the heavens. But then we stepoutside wherever we happen to be,take in … Continue reading →