Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006, offers Judith Harris’ poem, “In Your Absence,” in his 157th column for American Life in Poetry.
About the poem, Kooser observes, “From your school days you may remember A. E. Housman's poem that begins, ‘Loveliest of trees, the cherry now / Is hung with bloom along the bough.’ Here's a look at a blossoming cherry, done 120 years later, on site among the famous cherry trees of Washington, by D.C. poet Judith Harris.”
The following is a sample to whet your appetite. To read the entire poem, please see American Life in Poetry: Column 157.
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.
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