Author Archives: janishaag

(for Dad’s birthday… and Mom, too) Having no idea if you’re even you anymore,gone these 21 years, it occurs to me thatif there is still something of you, the him, there might still be something of she, the her.And perhaps, … Continue reading →

I wanted to know,whoever I was, I wasalivefor a little while. —Mary Oliverexcerpt from “Dogfish,” from Dream Work © 1986, Penguin ••• One way to know you’re aliveis to use the body you were given— though you had no say … Continue reading →

For a week now, I have risenas the sky begins to pinken,to gently pull aside the windowshadeand see the collective of thirteen soaring pines downslopestanding at attention overthe Hood Canal. I look atthe half-finished upper deck that Al is building … Continue reading →

Which seems like a lot—the most I’ve ever hadin this lifetime— but not nearly as manyas the longtime lodgersperched on this hillside, long-trunked and denselybranched evergreens thathave logged perhaps two or three times mynumber of years. No wayto know until … Continue reading →

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 →