Sydney Lea: Black Marks
On this Sunday morning at the end of November, I’ve been walking the Snake Road, its tar still dry; our winter is predicted to be warm this year.
Sydney Lea: Poor, Sad Soul
I’d seen that balding woman before, the one I watched as she transferred a few small sacks of groceries from her shopping cart to her Kia Soul, a car I considered too young for her.
Sydney Lea: Before the Operation
The surgeon assures my wife and me:
“a little scrape, then zip! Home-free.”
How did age come on with so little warning?
I woke up in tears early this morning,
then put on an album by the great Art Blakey.
Sydney Lea: Hush
Does it make any sense to say I heard dead silence? No matter. I’ll simply declare that I’ve never known such quiet in the sixty years I’ve roamed these woods and hills.
Sydney Lea: But-cept
From a half-century ago, I remember wishing my oldest son would continue saying ‘upslide down’ at least until first grade.
Sydney Lea: What Shines?
Astonishing, this never-ending effort
to have had a happy childhood. Why does it matter
now, why will yourself into all that forgetting?
She may have been a good mother– at least she tried.
Sydney Lea: The Yogurt Cure
I grow more and more reminiscent, it seems, though that’s a relative assessment. Like my old poetic hero Wordsworth, I opted for an elegiac tone very young in my writing … Continue reading
Sydney Lea: A Monk After Dark
One boot sags like him in his cubicle’s corner.
He drops the other to the floor with a grimace.
Sydney Lea: Living History
I was not quite ten years old the day we traveled
To one site of the D-Day invasion nine years before.
I asked what the trouble was. His words sounded cryptic:
“We lost a lot of men here.”
Sydney Lea: Heterodox
A knows of B
That after grim chemo his hair came back
The doctors reckoned they’d licked his disease
Sydney Lea: Sunday Morning
…his left ring finger was hewn at the knuckle quite some years ago. If I think hard enough, I can remember when he was secretive about that injury. He kept the disfigured hand in his pocket or behind his back as much as he could.
Sydney Lea: How-to for Older Age
you won’t know that squall in the soul
as when you pondered your place in the world.
Whatever that was, now is.
Sydney Lea: Gradus ad Parnassum
On the other hand, the open handed
blows left scarce a mark, applied to your head or neck
