Max Reif’s most recent poem to appear here was “Leaving Oaxaca” (August 2019).
Homage to the Mexican Muralists
(Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City)
By Max Reif
I cannot know the nightmare
out of which
the world was waking
as I was taking
birth.
These artists try
to tell. They tell.
But I am deaf to hear.
I can’t descend
to that deep floor
of suffering, where
there isn’t any sky.
Somehow,
they witnessed
and endured.
I take in what
I can.