Judith Harris

Judith Harris was born in Washington DC and earned her BA from the University of Maryland, an MA in Creative Writing from Brown University, and a PhD in American literature from George Washington University. Her highly acclaimed critical study Signifying Pain: Constructing and Healing the Self through Writing (2003) was published by SUNY Press. She wrote several volumes of poetry and many essays and was included in several Greywolf anthologies including Simply Lasting: Writers on Jane Kenyon.

In Your Absence

Not yet summer,

but unseasonable heat

pries open the cherry tree.   

It stands there stupefied,

in its sham, pink frills,

dense with early blooming.   

Then, as afternoon cools

into more furtive winds,

I look up to see

a blizzard of petals

rushing the sky.   

It is only April.

I can’t stop my own life

from hurrying by.

The moon, already pacing.

— Judith Harris