John S. Harris

JOHN S. HARRIS is retiring professor of English at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. His publications include books on technical writing, academic articles, and articles on firearms technology and aircraft design. He has published Barbed Wire, a volume of poems. Another collection of poems, Second Crop, is forthcoming

The Unhobbled Mare

Articles/Essays – Volume 03, No. 4

From a lace-curtained upstairs window,
She absently watched the cluttered farmyard below.
In the shadow of the shed she saw his cold forge,
His heavy hammers, his grindstone and his powerful vise—
Beyond this the sheds and pens for his gentle cows and mares
And the high, strong corrals for his bull and stallion.

Risk and Terror

Articles/Essays – Volume 26, No. 4

When I lay in a hospital very badly injured from the crash of my experimental airplane, a visitor asked me if I thought my injuries were a judgment for my sins. I remember saying no, and I even remember wondering that anyone should be so silly, let alone so tactless, as to ask such a question. But I don’t remember who asked it, and I don’t really want to. The asker and I have some differences in philosophy and theology that are so deep and irreconcilable that it would be difficult for us to continue to be friends if those differences surfaced again.