Jan Haag taught journalism, English and creative writing at Sacramento City College for more than three decades before her 2021 retirement. A former magazine editor, she is the author of Companion Spirit, a collection of poems about her husband’s death published by Amherst Writers & Artists Press. She leads in-person writing groups in Sacramento, as well as virtual ones, in which the topic of grief and loss often arises. Read more of her beautiful writing here.
Or has everything happened,
and we are standing now, quietly, in the new life?
––from “Oceans,” Juan Ramon Jiménez
What we sustain
what we endure
suffer
accept
What we discern
what we comprehend
recognize
sense
distinguish
What we seize
what we possess
deduce
crave
What we
spring from
hustle to
trot on
whisk away
What shivers,
splinters
penetrates
what digs
what deepens
What remains
what stays,
what holds
what calls
what propels
What we swirl
what we simmer
What stands
what settles
what rests
unbends
slackens:
we abide
we endure
we pause
we dwell
we breathe
everything
oh, how we breathe
into the now of
this new life
