Author Archives: janishaag

(for Walt Wiley) Mr. Wiley used to call me now and thenfrom his desk at the local newspaper.Good reporter that he was, he knew justwhen to catch me between classes, often sitting in my office with a student journalistediting the … Continue reading →

You’re walking along a sidewalk,scuffing over divebombed leaves,more of them every day, and yourfeet brush an ordinary page, white, dirty, a piece of clear tapeaffixed to the top, and you stop,look down, to see faint writingthere, in wobbly pencil: miny … Continue reading →

(for Henry) So once upon a time, before there was Aunt Jan,there was just Jan… no, wait, there was her sister,Just, Donna, who married Just, Eric, and they wanted to have a little Just or two, and they did—first Lauren … Continue reading →

The tiniest thing can make a poem,I say, when people ask where theycome from— like the grasshopper who inadvertentlyhitched a ride on my windshieldon the drive home after a massage, stiffening my shoulders with concernfor its welfare. Should I pull … Continue reading →

which is almost as odd as saying,Lauren is a mama,because it was just a little while back that Donna birthed Lauren, who arrived earlier thanpredicted, and tinier— smaller than cousin Marrynand Robyn’s Cabbage Patch dolls—and now Lauren’s a mama (though … Continue reading →

(for Jill Batiansila and the Together We Healcommunity, with love and gratitude) Whether we want to or not, likeacorns released from their jaunty caps,dropping from valley oaks like arrows, we crack, we split, not for any reasonwe can determine, but … Continue reading →

Diego walks in the house callingand will not stop until he finds me.He’s not seeking food, just reassurance. Where are you? There you are.You were gone, and I couldn’t find you. I’m here! I call,knowing without looking thathe’s paused in … Continue reading →

Even when you walk the same streettwo hours later, things look different— picket fence shadows slanting northward,bread plate-sized sycamore leaves wind-pressed against a retaining wall. The walk home feels different, too—mid afternoon sun on your face,a vigorous breeze skittering the … Continue reading →

Not Indian, for good reasons,though I like the notion that the namefor this in-between season possiblycame from the Narragansett peoplewho believed that these distinctlyun-fallish days were delivered bya warm wind from the great spiritCautantowwit. This second summer, after the first … Continue reading →

Because I was teaching—something I rarely do thesedays—I missed the eclipse,relying on the eyes of others, later absorbed by photos ofhundreds of tiny half moonsprojected through a pinholeof some kind—a colander in one case—little smudgesof light and shadow spillingonto sidewalk … Continue reading →