Author Archives: janishaag

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—’tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. ― Mark Twain, from “The Art of Authorship,” 1890, quoting his friend Josh Billing ••• … Continue reading →

One bright morningas I cut your hair on the deckwithin sight of the oceanwhooshing its way into shore, I stop, look up at the sound—not the familiar call of geese,but the whoosh of hundredsof wings, dark arrows overhead,migrating north along … Continue reading →

My mother tells me she found her first dead flyin her wine glass last week. “It’s fly-in-wine season,” she says to my puzzledlook. This as her happy azaleas bloom theirpastel heads off, and the pink dogwood showsoff in the front … Continue reading →

Let’s see your rain dance, baby.C’mon, honey, give it all you’ve got.Don’t worry if anybody’s watching,Do your thing, don’t give it a second thought. —Antsy McClain, “Rain Dance” ••• Because weather on our coast travels west to east,the drops that … Continue reading →

I was hoping that the 26-second video that goes with today’s poem, “Water in conversation with other water,” would appear at the bottom of the email you received with the poem. Apparently it did not. To see the video at … Continue reading →

We stop to watch from the bluff-top trailas down on the rain-soaked sand two children work to carve a channelto convince water falling over nearby rocks to snake gracefully intorising surf. They work so hard at what nature does all … Continue reading →

Because stories are spells; they change things. When they hook us and reel us into their magic, they change us. It’s stories that will save us, in the end. Not just the stories we read or tell, or the stories … Continue reading →

The capsized ones float on the incoming tide,moving them toward sand and air, where, had they not already died,they would soon out of their element. And as I walk the tideline, the cobaltsailboats of the by-the-wind sailors tilt starboard and … Continue reading →

(Iris douglasiana)•••(for all the Dougs) Now that we know their name,we can address them properly aswe walk by the fan-shaped flowers on the bluff-top trail: Hiya, Doug,which calls to mind so manyDougs we have known— the college newspaper editorwho, decades … Continue reading →

(Pieris marginalis) The small white winged thingwhose name I did not yet knowwas the third insect I relocatedtoday from inside to out. The first an oblong black bugcrawling on the tan tile,easy to see, step on, but,as is my habit, … Continue reading →