The puzzle’s large enough—a thousand pieces
—the two of us work at it together: the image
is of a sweet, sunny summer afternoon.
A man lazes in a hammock wearing a paper hat,
drinking a pint glass of Guinness Stout,
an advertisement from 1960.
It was two days ago we found ourselves
explaining the same thing to each other
about that balance one needs to strike
between aching for that one piece you need to find,
convincing yourself it doesn’t exist, then go-finding
some other fitting shape given up on previously,
how you claim finding —that—your due reward
for genius not luck—ten more pieces
then fall into place so effortlessly.
The art of this process:
pressing then not pressing for result.
Later today we’ll likely finish; might leave the thing
out a day or two. Then it will be put back in the box,
broken down again into a thousand pieces.
I mention this at breakfast and, before I can tell her
I’ve made the same connection, she compares this
to the way those Buddhist monks regathered the sand
painting they’d done, an intricately patterned mandala
composed, grain by colored grain.
Weeks of work, we’d watched them at it
then the ritual when finished: sand swept into a bucket,
carried in solemn procession across the college campus
to the edge of a pond.
Unintelligible prayer-chants, then silence.
The sand thrown in clouds over the water.
A whispering as each particle struck the water’s surface.
—kiss—kiss—kiss—
My mother’s old line comes to mind.
“Kiss it up to God,” she’d say.
—kiss—kiss—kiss—
It was advice about disappointment, I think,
about letting it go, or accepting it,
usually meant more as humor than wisdom.
“Kiss it up to God.”
I hear her voice —wonder if I’ll find a place for that to fit.
Tom Driscoll Writing 