Max Reif: "To a Visionary Whose Name I'll Never Know"

This is to you, lady who smiled at me
as I came out of the subway at 14th Street

and walked down 6th Avenue in the winter of '74
having just arrived in New York. Gentle feathers

of snow had just begun falling from the black.
I felt myself taken into your eyes, and suddenly

was no longer a confused young man
wondering whether every next step was the right one,

but a light-being, love built into his cells,
leaning forward, poised to give.

Thirty-five years later
I still walk those tunnels of your eyes

down the line of your smile
toward that person you saw in me.



"To a Visionary Whose Name I'll Never Know" by Max Reif. First published in Tiferet: Literature, Art, & the Creative Spirit. Presented here by poet submission. To read more of Max Reif's writings, go to Faith of an Artist—The Writings of Max Reif.

Art credit: Untitled photograph of old New York City subway token, presumably by Eric Sandstrom, published in "Good for One Fare," The New York Times (1/30/2013).