(.....July24) The Partnership Poem by Max Reif

I could say the partnership
begins when my day begins,
but in fact it's as 24/7
as an all-night diner.

I have partners who made
the mattress and the bed
my body rests on at night,
and some of my partners in China
wove the pajamas I wear.

Partners worked
to create the toothbrush
and the shaver
I greet the morning with
while looking in the mirror,
and the mirror itself,

and of course the computer
I check in with
was a global affair
in design and manufacture.

For breakfast I cook
the eggs a farmer gathered
and a trucker transported
to the supermarket, and the oatmeal
grown somewhere in the Midwest
and processed here in California,
and I have a banana picked a few days ago
by my campanero
partners in Central America.

A little later,
I get in my Mazada,
and I need not describe
the partnership of minds and bodies,
in time and space,
it took the human spirit
to put me behind the wheel —
and all that's before 10 AM.

A profound thank you
to all my unseen partners,
who sustain me
every minute of the day and night,
and a wish
that my own contribution
somehow pulls my weight.