Author Archives: janishaag

(for Terri Wolf) I step into the warm indoor poolas, outside, the desert dawnbegins to bloom. I’m 500 miles from my rainy-cold home, staying insteadwith my friend who jogs down Lane #3 every winter morning at 6.Though I am a … Continue reading →

Wrapped in the arms of ancestorslong gone, the younger generations criss-cross their way up the trunk,living their lives, dying their deaths, becoming stairsteps for the newestdescendants at the top, shaggy green, reaching for the high blue.We all grow from such … Continue reading →

Anything can be a poem.Even typing the number for my to-goairport burrito into a note on my phone,which would in itself be a fine start,if not remarkable in any way, if not for the fact that, as I waited,I watched … Continue reading →

(for Ashley Just and Kevin Just) The kids are really putting their backsinto it—my nephew, who, with his wife,are working hard to make the old house theirs, clearing a half-century’s worth of overgrownfront yard and remaking it anew with slenderbender … Continue reading →

In other words, it seems like love has left youbecause, perhaps, someone has. Because it feels as if: (choose your metaphor):—you’re alone at the bottom of the cold, dark sea, or—a great bird has just slammed into your chest and … Continue reading →

He was the proverbial stick—or the rear right wheel of his car was—the rainy night of his 82nd birthdaywhen he drove out to my late mother’shouse by the lake to haul bags of herclothes 20 miles to the thrift store … Continue reading →

(for Dick) Some burst like pale pink fireworks so early,and I pull the car over to walk up a newly greening slope and admire them up close,tiny gems bobbing against a gray sky. The first blossoms surprise me every year. … Continue reading →

(for Dick Schmidt, on his birthday) Because, the day before he turns 82,he pulls himself out of a warm bedsooner than he’d like to come toyour house and pick up the lone box that remains ofyour late mother’s many, manyboxes … Continue reading →

On the church steps on a cold clear morningthree days before St. Valentine’s Daythere he was in the deep shade,a slender young man with a days-old beardand only a small towel around his shoulders. Honey, whispered the little red-haired angelwho … Continue reading →

After we leave for the night— after we have spent hours pulling dustybooks off shelves, and finding photos tuckedinto unexpected crevices, after tossingpaper, paper, and more paper, setting asideoffice supplies and semi-precious stones(so many crystals!), more books, more records,tapes (cassette … Continue reading →