Page 48 - WTP VOl. XI #1

syDney lea
On Approaching 80
He believed he observed the world from a lethal angle, his stare as destructive as the fabled basilisk’s.
He decried his own carnal impulse, for example, swearing that it had led him to hell and back.
He brooded on certain brutalities of weather,
speaking of birds wind-slammed as they strove to rise.
He made bleak poems of such stuff, one after another, sought to distill whatever he saw of life
to pain, as water reduces boulder to pebble.
Even back then, of course, he knew there were spells
when the bird-flocks soared, but wouldn’t his art be crippled if he acknowledged them, or anything else
that waylaid him with its beauty or joy? He must own those agonized songs. He has no choice—they’re there—
but he’s also amused, so many years having flown,
by how studied, and yet unschooled, was their despair.
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A former Pulitzer finalist and winner of the Poets’ Prize, Lea served as found- ing editor of New England Review and was Vermont’s Poet Laureate from 2011 to 2015. He is the author of 23 books, including, most recently, Seen from All Sides: Lyric and Everyday Life, essays (Green Writers Press, VT, 2021), and Here, poetry (Four Way Books, NYC, 2019). In 2021, he was pre- sented with his home state of Vermont’s most prestigious artist’s distinction: the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. His new poetry collection (What Shines?, Four Way Books) will be published early 2023.