Max Reif - Man, the Amnesiac

(a poem written in 1982)
***

You are the heirs of Adam and Eve.
Inside you Original Beauty lies concealed!
Oh, when will you remember?

I see you scratch your head in the marketplace
Looking for your keys,
You body become large and hard
Like a fortress
To keep Soul-bird locked away.

How have you forgotten, O Man?
How can you live through your life
Scratching your head as if to remember
Where you left your keys, but actually trying
To remember where you left <i> yourself</i>?

How did you create
That mold that is not you?
How do you keep living there
Fifty, seventy-five years,
Smiling and joking till the very end
As though you <i>were</i> in there somehow?

Yes, you are there,
But dying of mortal fear
In the cellars and dungeons within you.
Yes, you are there, but saying,

'I must let no one see me.'
I must let no one know me.
I must behave always perfectly,
Lifting my spoon with precision to stir my tea,
Lipstick always perfect,
Speaking only words that are expected'