9 hours ago
(10 hours ago)dukealien Wrote: Die-Cut
Life is made of puzzle pieces–
some events, new thoughts about them,
memories of things that happened,
schemes and dreams that never did.
As each die-cut shape flips over,
future gray to brilliant present,
there’s a moment to consider
where to place it in the past.
Sometimes it’s a straight-edged border
or a corner setting limits;
mostly it will join a pile, once
judged by color, image, kind.
Then, with many upward-facing,
understanding, meaning, slowly
forms but gaps remain, demanding
search among bits pushed aside. … could be cut out or combined with the strophe above. It’s two stropies about downward facing pieces and one of upward facing ones.
Often missing pieces turn out
to be, not still face-down, waiting,
but a person met, discarded,
for her color or his shape. …. This is the best part of the poem, and makes good use of the life metaphor
In the end, some puzzle-solvers
know beforehand what their final
panorama will portray: they
saw the box-top, read the Book.
Others will delay that closing
recognition of the picture
they’ve assembled, but it finds them
for no life ends incomplete. …too strong a closing statement, and evidently wrong given childhood deaths and deaths in youth. “For their lives to end complete” or something like that would be less problematic
It’s a good read, but one or two strophes too many IMO