No Auld Lang Syne

Never mind Akhmatova...We've heard
her boots with bells reverberate
despite the footprints in the snow.
Don't raise a cup to Einstein either -
Who could forget that bushy hair
wired for the 5th dimension?
And Madame Curie - all the toasts
already made assure her place in radiant history!

No...no...let's drink to the man
who hauls away our garbage...
to the old woman still hoping
for something she can remember...
to the infant pushing her life this moment,
this now, through the terrible tunnel
toward the light she's been dreaming of.
And if there is champagne enough
let's give another hoist to the boy
who laughs at the tired shadows
on the wall & paints
his reckless masterpiece
with no further expectations.

Renoir As A Way In

Firm-fleshed women, peach-ripe
in the noon of their lives...
enough to fill the rooms
with eager eyes.
But with the mix & shimmer
of yellow into green
into red into purple,
tempered with white,
with a soft-edged brush -
for those who pause...
the day expands
to the brink of April.
Light bends inward
& walls give way to early sun.
A man on his way to work
pauses to consider the space
between the blue entangled leaves.

^

Biography

Peggy Aylsworth's poetry has been published in numerous American literary journals. Along with her husband, Norm Levine, she has published two books of poetry, Letters To The Same Address and Along These Lines She has a novel Among These Several online (at www.firstebooks.com) and is currently working on a third novel set in Arizona and France, This Water, This Dry Land