I didn’t even know
I was a jigsaw
What about Beethoven’s
Fifth
without the first eight chords
She Loves You
without the Yeahs
Van Gogh’s Sunflowers
painted in black and white
Satisfaction
without
the word satisfaction
Hamlet without Hamlet
Mona Lisa facing
the other way
or, better still:
just the scenery
(c. summer 1990)
it can only be too little too late; the irreparable loss has already irrevocably been sustained: one piece of a jig saw missing renders the whole useless there and then the jig saw isn't going to hang about for the piece to arrive it's just going to get binned for the useless incomplete commodity that it is. if the errant piece should turn up late what does it find? no jigsaw waiting for it, that of course is assuming it actually IS the missing piece which of course in this case it cannot be the passage of time has already long voided any former match. just give me the scenery, that's enough
ReplyDeleteAnd also - if we are 'a missing jigsaw piece' for our mothers/fathers, and our mothers/fathers are 'a missing jigsaw piece' for us then we have two missing jigsaw pieces put together. That's a full picture, right?
DeleteHmmm...only if the parties want to acknowledge their was / is a missing piece...sometimes one of the parties might prefer to deny all knowledge—could be tough for the missing piece 'eh?
DeleteOn a slightly different note, have you read Jackie Kay's collection 'The Adoption Papers'? Another, different experience...each one unique.
Oops! Non-deliberate smelling pistake!
DeleteToo easy for those who always lived with their birth parents to make assumptions...you capture something special and moving here, Fergus. You get to the gist of the thing, the it...
ReplyDeleteThank you very much, Polly. We of the tribe have lived various version of 'it'; it's just rather difficult to articulate. (I like the idea of 'the it' - the 'whatness' of something; its quiddity; 'the it' is most pleasing, though.)
DeleteIt matters 😘
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