What Shines

Retrospective of a long life and already inimitable career in poetry, Sydney Lea's What Shines asserts and asks in equal measure. In older age, Lea affirms the luster of fruit long labored for: a resilient and happy marriage; the rewards of parenthood and, later, grandchildren; a profound intimacy with northern New England - the environment, the seasons, the people, home, time. But he also transmits the escalating urgency of answering the fundamental question: at this late hour, what light do we have to see by? What light will outlast us? In "e;1949,"e; Lea revisits old photographs: one of his parents "e;both grinning straight at the Kodak, / an elm, not yet blighted to death, at their backs,"e; another of his mother standing beside a bucket of sunfish. "e;With what I've known, you'd think there'd be chapter on chapter,"e; he says, everything habitual, familiar. Still he stumbles upon revelation, the visceral novelty of experience, and Lea's brilliant shock glimmers in the golden hour. "e;I shouldn't be,"e; he disclaims, "e;and yet somehow I'm stunned: / Even the fish in that yellowed photo are young."e; Despite the accelerating onset of autumn, consolations line the path "e;at the edge / of our late-shorn meadow,"e; where there lie blackberries that "e;should have vanished by now."e; And so what if a handful will not disarm winter? "e;Though tiny and poor, it's sweet, / the fruit, even more so / than when I found more."e; If we receive this allotment of days once and only once, Lea's consummate collection urges us to remember the spirit of the lyric itself: although we couldn't keep it all forever, when we had it, my God, so much of it was sweet.