(..01july3) Reflections Of A Late Afternoon (Re-Edited) Poem by Max Reif

1.
How is it that a day
begins long and slow,
a world just born
and beginning to unfold

and then,
looking back
from its other end,

we see there's only
a short stump of a thing?

What happened
to all that promise?
Surely

there's as much God
in the molecules of the evening
as in those of the morning.

Something has fled
or been consumed,
and I guess
it was something
in me.

2.
But when a man
devotes his days to building
what he loves

and he feels spent,
he knows all
that's gone out from him
now resides
in the thing he's making

and he can relax
knowing nothing is lost.

Indeed, what lived
only in him
now lives
where all can find it.

3.
And maybe a poet
is building
that kind of home, as well.

Though it's not
in a space
with two-by-fours
and sheet rock, yet

it has windows
and yes, a door,

and you can enter
and leave uplifted.

And because it's not
a landmark on a hill,

maybe it's a little
more magical,
a city
that comes out of the air
fullblown
from these little
black marks on a page.

4.
I do
some of my best work
when I'm exhausted
and think there's nothing left.

And then I rest satisfied
beside the new little structure,
added on to the vast
domicile the spirit
has created

that is nowhere on the earth
but offers refreshment to many.