Author Archives: janishaag

(for Mom and Donna from Jan on Kauai) ••• Deep peace of the running wave to youDeep peace of the flowing air to youDeep peace of the quiet earth to youDeep peace of the shining stars to youDeep peace of … Continue reading →

Sometimes we must sacrifea few letters for love, especially when we declare itso publicly, as if, by withholding a vowel and an oh-so-importantconsonant, we have made it clear to the world—if not our beloved—that we have given up, renounced, something, … Continue reading →

Another shitty dayOn JanJan’s vacay. —Dick Schmidt ••• In case you can’t tell, he’s kidding… We’ve just finished a terrific first week on Kauai and are now on the lovely north shore, which feels like home to us. (Mahalo, Toni … Continue reading →

First, resist the urge for light. Step from memory across the grassto the henhouse where the girls sleepon their perches as if they’ve downeda few strawberry margaritas. Tiptoe as you move close to a snoring hen.Pin her wings gently to … Continue reading →

He’s 30 feet up, a spikeon the bottom of each bootplunged into the slendertrunk curving toward the ocean, a yellow umbilicalcord around his middlebinding him to thiselder statesman. A slender U, the treetrimmer bends like a bow,intently studying, like anygood … Continue reading →

There are two worlds: the world that we can measure with line and rule,and the world we feel with our hearts and imagination. —Leigh Hunt ••• In this place,this new place, not new at all,not even to you who have … Continue reading →

We lose the people we love we become poets. We fight battlesno one knows about, we use the blood to write poetry. —“Loss,” Xara Hlupekile, Malawian poet ••• You see these hands, the ones attachedto the ends of your wrists? … Continue reading →

(Poipu Beach, Kauai) Late afternoons they lumberout of the sea, their powerfulfront legs leaving tire tracks in the soft sand, to heavethemselves up and out of theirworld into ours for a time. Fifty, seventy, eighty greensea turtles will arrive oneby … Continue reading →

Know this curve of bay well.Walked it, swam it, dug my feet into its sandy slope so many timesit feels like one of the elements of this island that have seepedinto me. Surely, my blood must be half seawater by … Continue reading →