How Life Is Like a Jigsaw Puzzle
We begin so eager and innocent
dumping out hundreds of pieces
certain of ourselves.
Then we get down to the
turning and sorting which
lasts longer than it should.
Crisp and flat in our tender fingers
each piece becomes its own.
In search of order we
border the puzzle in,
yet pieces range wide.
We divide the figures by likeness:
colors and lines, sizes and shapes.
The assembling begins in quiet—
trial and error our fallback tool.
We are going to need help.
Midway through the second day
we begin seeing pieces in our dreams,
find their shapes in our food and yards,
the faces and bodies of friends.
We sort and arrange, bridge
together what seems to belong.
Where could that missing piece be?
we ask yet know we hold them all.
Third day we’re at it alone
and growing discouraged.
It begins to feel like work,
yet we fear giving up.
There are lessons learned here,
a process taken in, the work
of mending, finding light, feeling
our way towards an end.
Something draws us, pulls us on
towards the rush of last pieces,
the satisfaction of making whole.
We stand back, take it all in,
then begin the taking apart,
piece by piece, and the
putting it away.
About the Author: Larry Smith is the editor-publisher of Bottom Dog Press in Ohio, also the author of 6 books of fiction and 8 books of poems, most recently The Pears: Poems. A retired professor of humanities, he lives and works along the shores of Lake Erie in Huron, Ohio.
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Image Credit: Alphonse Legros “Studies of Hands” Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.
As It Ought To Be 