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 Pulitzer finalist in poetry, Sydney Lea founded New England Review, was Vermont’s Poet Laureate, and received his state’s highest artistic distinction, the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. He has published two novels (most recently Now Look), eight volumes of personal essays (most recently, Such Dancing as We Can), and sixteen poetry collections (most recently What Shines). His new and selected poems is due in 2026.

Plume: Plume Issue #157 September 2024