Jigsaw by Lawrence Kushner

Each lifetime is the peices of a jigsaw puzzle.
For some there are more pieces.
For others the puzzle is more difficult to assemble.

Some seem to be born with a nearly completed puzzle.
And so it goes.
Souls go this way and that.
Trying to assemble the myriad parts.

But know this.  No one has within themselves
All the pieces to their puzzle.
Like before the days when they used to seal
jigsaw puzzles in cellophane.  Insuring that
All the pieces were there.

Everyone carries with them at least one and probably
Many pieces to someone else's puzzle.
Sometimes they know it.
Sometimes they don't.

And when you present your piece.
Which is worthless to you,
To another, whether you know it or not,
Whether they know it or not,
You are a messenger from the Most High

Reprinted with permission of author and publisher: Lawrence Kushner 1977, pp 69-70. Honey from the Rock.

Thank you to Linda Greenseid the facilitator of the PEJE Leadership Community Of Practice for my calling attention to this poem.