Sydney Lea

Bloom

My good ear up on the pillow, I woke to intricate cantillations

of a winter wren and cheer up! cheer up! from a virtual covey of robins.

Then stunning whiteness raided the room. In the hazy dawn, that light

made any brooding absurd. Our magnolia stood in prodigal blossom.

Its appearance explained the light but not its effect, which I still can’t explain.

Downstairs I found my wife on her knees to comfort our hip-sore retriever.

She arose, we lingered at two cups of coffee, looking out at the tree,

which we mutually, mutely proclaimed a sign at last of the death of winter.

When she stood to reach a plate on a shelf, the tail of her shirt lifted slightly,

unveiling a swath of midriff as pale as those indescribable flowers.

I caught my breath, shocked motionless, and felt as so often the stirring

of that recurring vision– mornings, bloom, a love unending.   

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 (Four Way Books, NYC, 2023). His latest book of personal essays, Such Dancing as We Can, is now available from The Humble Essayist Press, and his second novel, Now Look, has recently been published by Downeast Books.