Marie Harris

writer, poet, voice

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Trial Separation

March 3, 2016 Leave a Comment

TRIAL SEPARATION

I rented a little windblown house with two bedrooms and a single tree in the back yard onto which every morning evening grosbeaks descended like a brief squall. I bought new sleeping bags and a portable record player for my sons. I changed my brand of dish liquid to one that smelled exactly like fresh peaches and found a part time job reading the papers of a freshman science fiction class. One afternoon a painter came by and declared that he had always loved me. A visiting poet and her lover spent an evening in my bathtub. My friends told me I looked wonderful. By late spring my husband took to calling at odd hours to talk about himself and ask me to come home. It was time, he said. I packed up, drove the eight miles back to a house where, in my absence, the kitchen had been painted a too-yellow color and his study walls were a cold shade of blue. When I turned down our bed I found a red stain on the sheet.

Filed Under: Words in Progress Tagged With: marriage, poetry

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Words in progress

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A Poet for Your Bookshelf, Classroom, or Library

Welcome! Come on in and browse through my books of poetry, anthologies I’ve edited and in which my poems appear, and some essays and articles on subjects ranging from blue water sailing to New England farm stays to birding. You can also find photos of my collaborations with painters, sculptors, photographers and musicians. Listen to audio clips of a sampling of my voiceover work.

As a poet, I perform and teach at colleges & universities throughout the country, and in residencies in elementary and high schools, libraries, writers’ workshops and retreats, and senior centers. Read More…

Words in Progress

Walking Song

WALKING SONG …reminding herself that she was only an elderly woman who had got up too early in the morning and journeyed too far, that the despair creeping over her was merely her despair, her personal weakness, and that even if she got a sunstroke and went mad the rest of the world would go […]

My Brother is Gone from Us

Basil Harris (pictured with sister Anne, summer 2016) He died today. Farewell, sweet singer.

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