Author Archives: janishaag

Lady Liberty may be caged for now,she may be detained behind a fenceor kept out of a place thatis rightfully hers, but hear this as you try to stompon her freedom-loving soul:She is not sitting or lying down;she is standing … Continue reading →

(for Sue Reynolds, visiting from Canada) While you nap, exhausted from the longjourney from your side of the continentto mine, I grab the clippers and head for rosesthat my long-ago neighbor Inez plantedfor us here on Santa Ynez Way. I … Continue reading →

I want to be what you saw in me—the bright and energetic, frizzy-haired bundleof young woman with the too-big glasseswho was still so much girl, one whohad so much to live and learn. But something in you found somethingin me … Continue reading →

You wish this had come to youas you watched her labor through the last days of hardbreaths, focusing on the in and the out, the lengtheningbetween: that the breath has no body. It is not our home.We let each one … Continue reading →

(for Antsy McClain) Even without the band,it just takes one man,six strings and a voice that reachesinto your soul and tugson your deepest self, urging you to settle infor a spell of kindness,to feel like family, embraced by his largeheart … Continue reading →

This bird woman uncaged,florally abundant, smiling,clear-eyed and colorful, a woman who has seen and lovedand lived well, holding it in everycell, every fold, every wink. Let me grow into this old womanamid blooming things likeflowers and wingéd things like birds … Continue reading →

Though we were only two at the table,certainly her mother joined us, as she always does,along with another who mothered me, too, as a 20-something, new-to-town journalistwho didn’t know she needed mothering.That little town gave me two maternal voices I … Continue reading →

The memory of your face,your voice, your embrace,your last kindness, so that, as I leave you in this moment,if I should not return,you will remain tucked into the folds of my heart,my brain, my cells,where you will stay, ever as … Continue reading →

I am drawn to the circular path,the one-way passage to the center,then retracing the same way out,though it never looks the same. I gave her the little silver spiralset onto a turquoise glass pendant.I don’t recall how often she wore … Continue reading →

(for Donna and Lauren and Rosie) We love the boys, too,but these three generationsof Just girls have my heart, my sister who made me an aunton my 29th birthday, then my niecewho made me a great aunt (You’ve always been … Continue reading →