Author Archives: janishaag

Oh, how they swirl on the surfaceof your tea, the dervishes dancing, whirling, to the tuneof your spoon swirling. And, if you angle your headnear the rim, just so, you might hear a poemaborning in that moment as your dervishes … Continue reading →

(for Mom) Though she sits now to sing,she’s up there sparkling with her Sweet Adeline buddies,six decades as a baritone— one of the more difficultparts in barbershop. And though she will nottravel this year to compete with her chorus, she … Continue reading →

The one perfect stemwith its waggingpurple tonguesflirts as I walk by: Hi, there.Aren’t I lovely? And I stop, say,You so are,seized by the desireto possess, howevermomentarily, suchbeauty, wanting to pluck herfrom her birthplace,take her with me.But to do so woulddoom … Continue reading →

I was, with many others spaced apart six feet or more, standing in line outside a Trader Joe’s, waiting to go in for groceries (no toilet paper or tissue, of course), marveling at the consistency of flowers blooming their fool … Continue reading →

We’re fellow travelers on a moonlit road through the night country, where there’s never any rush hour.—Frank Bruni, opinion writer, The New York Times ••• The 3:45 a.m. email gets sentlike a flashlight SOS in the night— three rapid flashes,then … Continue reading →

You won’t remember this,though your dearest ones willsomeday show you old photos, but on your first Easter youdid not hunt for eggs or have a basket,though you were in a kind of basket for a time—your happy placebackpack on your … Continue reading →

Who do you pray to whenyou don’t believe in God? she asks. And somehow, jaw tightening,you bite down on the blurt—Whom!—the correction slidingdown your throat like sweet cream, for you are no longer in teacher mode,and your spine straightens, yourwings … Continue reading →

Heya, little slug, how’d you end up crawlingacross a dirty, cat-footeddish towel on the kitchen counter this rainy night? As if I don’t know, Diego having wandered in allsoggy from a who-knows-wherenap, undeterred by wet or mudbetween his toes, to, … Continue reading →

Good Friday 2024 We’ve becomehallowed vessels of mercylined with graceafter being hollowed outby the swift kick of departure, imagining the vanishedbeloveds poofed intonothingness, when nothingcould be less true. It happens, they try to tell us,that they live on in particlesof … Continue reading →

Leave your worries on the padbeside the bed—maybe it’s on the bednext to the cat curled into oblivion. She can sleep. Why can’t you? The pad, the journal, the pagecan take whatever you throw on it.It’s a sturdy thing, after … Continue reading →