Peggy Aylsworth

BEYOND THE HEADLINES

If I ride the bus to the end of the line
I might discover the existence of God.
In the Sudan, a girl of 15, shamed
by the stab of rape, sits with her new-born,
confronts me on page one. It’s Rosh Hashanah.
Not everywhere is today, but the New Year
has no calendar. I find more comfort
in the man of 59 who walks the city streets
on weekends, in among a potpourri
of factories & power lines, no destination.
Beauty even in the ugly, he declares.
Happiness, says a Dodger fan, as he buys
the whole right field pavilion, rests with a Giant’s
record homer he might capture on the fly.
I’d get on my knees to the Goddess of Mercy
to save New Orleans from the devastation
of Ivan the Hurricane. But prayer,
alas, is mother only to the supplicant.
Recently I learned a monk devised
the pretzel, a tribute to our folded arms.
In the midst of stings & consolations,
I sing through the window at the dried-out meadow,
stirred by the sudden silver of unpredicted rain.

—from Rattle #26, Winter 2006
Tribute to the Greatest Generation