Self-Identification By Process Of Elimination Poem by Max Reif

I don’t know how to make things
out of metal or stone
or bring them forth from the ground,

or how a building rises
like magic from Nothing, or how

raw metal, plastic and rubber
arrive at a plant
and come off a conveyor
sleek, shiny and ready to drive,

can’t follow out
the lines of fate
on circuit boards

or create a machine
that makes other machines,

don’t know what tool and dye is
or for that matter, escrow.

What I know is how
to walk around outdoors
and appreciate the Magic
of some of those things
and the gifts Nature bestows.

I’m an eye
and sometimes an ear,
and when clouds
aren’t in the way,
a beating heart —

all Air and Fire,
swimming
through Water
toward Earth,
which I love.