Author Archives: janishaag

The pale pink ones by the garage, the bushdeeply pruned by the next generationwho will soon call your house home. Instead of the great haystack of shubbery,it is now an artful bit of sculpture,its perfect blossoms gazing west into late … Continue reading →

(for Barbara in Lane #2) I am the visiting one who has flown inand landed with a gentle whoosh in this five-lane pond, one whosome might perceive as an interloper, one who might need to be chasedoff by other floating … Continue reading →

As the murky horizon gives wayto a watercolor sky out the windshield,me riding shotgun, Terri wheeling usinto what’s become her spot inthe empty parking lot. We might have the big pool all toourselves this morning, Terri says,for our 45-minute 6 … Continue reading →

My hands are powerful healing toolsThey know exactly where to applytheir healing energy. I handle my lifewith love. —affirmation on the bulletin board inmy mother’s home treatment room ••• Again and again, on sheets of paperI find in her handwriting—notes … Continue reading →

Dewy, Dewy, Dewy, do you love me?Dewy, Dewy, Dewy, do you care?Dewy, Dewy, are you thinking of me?Dewy, Dewy, will you still be there?—1970s pop song And he is there—Dewy remembers me,who visited him last year—comingto drape his long, lanky … Continue reading →

(after Nikita Gill) Well, first, it should be “fewer,” as I told way too manycollege students who truly couldn’t care less. Butshort is the point. Love short. Trying to write shorter.A lifelong task.

(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 →