Marie Harris

writer, poet, voice

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Valentine’s Day

February 13, 2016 Leave a Comment

Charter and I always forget our wedding anniversary because Valentine’s Day has always served the purpose. We usually do something special, a weekend away often to a seaside town locked in winter silence or a nearby city with a museum and good restaurants. Every year my husband  presents me with a most unusual handmade Valentine.

And every year I write him a love poem.

DESIRE LINES

         …represent the shortest or most easily navigated route between an origin and destination

That March night when I came here

   from everywhere I’d been

     the snow was troweled thick as plaster

       on the dark boughs and branches.

A single footpath

   skirting bog and boulder, worn to roots

     by a single man walking,

       led me to the house, its single room.

So much has changed since then.

   But the piney aisle that first described

     my way home remains…

       the shortcut from love’s beginning

To death’s warm and reassuring anteroom.

   The path is visible even on moonless nights,

     limned by a tree-lined emptiness

       above me in the sky.

 

Filed Under: Words in Progress Tagged With: love poetry, Valentine's Day

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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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