Author Archives: janishaag

At the intersection of grin and smilepointing the way to happywhether you know it or not you made your way here to standon the edge of this circle and absorbwhat you think has eluded you so soak it up, buttercup,let … Continue reading →

Your transition stanza is muchlike a bridge in a song, cleverlychanging from gray to blue, someone writes in a comment aboutone of my poems, and, admiringher nice simile and specific color images, I take a teacherlymoment to tell her that … Continue reading →

It seizes your nostrils with asweet, pungent zing—a hitof oxygen that arrives beforethe rain, an electrical charge splittingnitrogen and oxygen moleculeswith an atmospheric ax, and though you don’t think of itas ozone (which it is) your brainmay flash with a … Continue reading →

I stand at my kitchen counter,two bags of them open-mouthedbefore me, ones that I took to my mother,who has returned them to mesaying, I can’t shell them. I can’t seethe shells from the nuts. I endup biting shells, which, given … Continue reading →

I like the way Brits sayhalf-four, that time between hoursto signal the midpoint,a sense of partly accomplishedand hope for what is to come. Today I am half-65,halfway to my next birthday—for many of my adult yearsnot a date I marked, … Continue reading →

You know how sometimes youmake something harder thanit has to be, which can feel like trying toshovel packed snow hardenedinto a giant ice cube? Or, today, like futzing witha simple poem to somehowforce it to sing when all the damn … Continue reading →

Keep a sharp eye out—it’s your the last chance to seethe Claw in action for the season— leaf season, that is, which in my cityruns from November to the end of January, though some of the most stubbornsycamore leaves will … Continue reading →

Do not disturb says the grass green signsprouting from bladesof a similar color, tiny grass is dreaming And if you peer closely,squint a bit, you mightsee tiny eyelids closed on those leaves of grass,infinitesimal lashesfluttering in sleep, growing as they … Continue reading →

It is no small thing to begranted this time, to walk into a long-ago classroom alivein your mind, slide onto a hard wooden chair attached toa round-bottomed desk, open the Formica’d lid, and pull outa nearly full notebook of swollen … Continue reading →

Everything— every breath, every moleculeof sunshine, the deluge that caught youyesterday, the morsel of gladnessin sharing a smile with a dear one,that sharp taste of sweetnessdown to the unfathomable weightof yet another sorrow— none of it will come again. Not … Continue reading →