Author Archives: janishaag

(for Kai Owens, our seatmate on our Nov. 19 flight to Hawaii) They start them here young,as little as two or four,on boogie boards in swellsso small they barely qualifyas waves. But that’s how you learn,my rangy seatmate on the … Continue reading →

When the rain lets up,I walk to the next block,stand beneath my favoriteginkgo in a neighbor’s yard. I knew its former caretakers,but they are long gone, whichhappens when you have livedin a place going on four decades. I’m leaving before … Continue reading →

(for Gerald and Lauren and Henry) Out past mown farmlandsun crushed by rain-weary cloudsreflected in shallow poolsof emptied fields— I have a trunk latch that needsfixing and a generous nephew-in-lawready to help, so I make a round-aboutcircuit, the back way … Continue reading →

You’re a year younger than I, which mightaccount for your youthful… well, everything,from your spectacular figure and eye-poppingblonde sheen— not that I’m jealous, though OK, I was,just a little, long ago—but honey, youclearly have a whole team of pros keepingyou … Continue reading →

And August leaves of abundancemust abandon the trees of Novemberdescending to stark silhouettes,graphic and grey and attentive. —from “Orchard 1,” Kathryn Hohlwein ••• And now they are on their wayto that state of bare attention— we see them tall and … Continue reading →

My life,you were a doorI was given to walk through —Jane Hirshfield, from “The Asking: New and Selected Poems” ••• What was that openingthat I walked through before I could walkbefore I was fully formed before I felt like me?An … Continue reading →

On a day of coincidences,my order for the to-gopoke bowl came to$19.58, and it took till I’d gotten into my car,backed out of the spaceand hung a U-ie onFair Oaks Boulevard before I realized, Hey,that’s my year, whenI made my … Continue reading →

Maybe you need to write a poem about grace.—Robert Hass ••• All I know about grace is that we don’tdeserve it, this unmerited favor thathumans can’t earn, that it’s kindness freely given, nudgingus into a state of being we can’t … Continue reading →

When we can no longer walk together—a long time from now, please— circumnavigating your park-likehomeplace abundant with trees, so many of them now loosening leaves,littering the crewcut lawns with every manner of foliage from heftyblushing trefoils to delicate gold fans. … Continue reading →

(Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023, Veterans’ Day) You said it never left you: 5 things you could see—• The letter summoning you• The doctor’s large finger in the cold exam room• The big yellow bus that was not taking you to … Continue reading →