Sydney Lea

Sicily, 1992

Etna’s lava shone against the gloom,
putting near lightning to shame.
I caught a new scent that was somehow reminiscent
of my uncle’s Guernsey barn.
Maybe, I thought, I’m the one it comes from.
Everybody’s tainted.
Humility’s never a failing. I looked to the mountain.

I don’t mean to hide
a thing from anyone. But hard as I try,
some secrets can’t be divulged,
not accurately; they’re inarticulable.
I didn’t have a lot
of cruelties to atone for. Or I didn’t think so.
Yet something had launched these thoughts:

maybe the lizard basking on a limestone post
that morning, its pipping throat
the very emblem of innocence– and exposure.
Don’t ask me why in that moment
I inexplicably felt on the verge of weeping.
Then I noticed a great brown kite
that, while it secreted its merciless, gruesome talons,

kept up a graceful, seemingly languid wheeling.

Author: Sydney Lea

A former Pulitzer finalist in poetry, Sydney Lea served as founding editor of New England Review and was Vermont’s Poet Laureate from 2011 to 2015.  In 2021, he was presented with his home state’s highest distinction of its kind, The Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. He has published twenty-four books: two novels, six volumes of personal and three of critical essays, and sixteen poetry collections, most recently What Shines (2023) His latest book of personal essays is Such Dancing as We Can (2024). His second novel, Now Look, was published last month.

 

Plume: Plume Issue #157 September 2024