Poetic Journal,2/11/07 Poem by Max Reif

AFTER THE RAIN

Under this wonderful sky,
is it not self-evident
our life is a great Adventure?
Are not all destinations
obviously holy?

Losing the great vision on a weekday,
as everyone tunnels to business like ants
and Business tries to throw its obsessive
net over the rushing traffic —

as long as this vast dome
of our infinity remains above us,
how can we go wrong?
How can even our fumbling
fail to get us
someplace beautiful?
**

OUTSIDE/INSIDE

The clock face is so simple,
the hands going round.
But a look inside
and we'd be lost amid gears.

The aisles of the store
present an appealing display.
Inside the office, the boss
struggles to balance
the nightmare accounts.

The downtown street is lovely,
yet restaurants and shops
are always dying and being born,
just like the people walking down the sidewalks.

I open my eyes.
The sun is shining
on the eternal traffic going by.
Inside, images, shadows.
No clear sense
of where I'm going,
or why.
**

AH!

We haven't seen the sun
for so many days, I'd forgotten
what these clear skies,
this blazing, feel like.

I'd gotten used to
mercifully opaque heavens

and falling asleep
to the drops from the gutter
coming down
one     at     a     time
in syncopation
with the general
patter on the pavement.

This transparency,
that curtain:
two sides
of the same joy.
**

PERSONAL HISTORY

Reading the principles
of a spiritual life,
he feels the perfection
and the truth of the words:

The world is a great Illusion,
Atma is Paramatma,
only God is real.

The Peace he feels
blankets the universe.
Swans glide
upon the lake of his mind:

Things that are real
are given and received
in Silence.
Live in the Present,
which is ever-beautiful...'
'in the world
but not of the world...'

And as he walks out his door,
a Sacred Name is rolling
like a wheel in his consciousness,
'mosquito net' against danger.

But as he assumes
his daily duties, the boat
of his idealism
begins to take on water,
and after awhile,
still repeating the Name,
he sinks, meditating
all the while

on the great abyss
between theory and practice.