puzzles

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(Mom said, “do you like puzzles?”

“Not especially”, the boys said)

A good jigsaw puzzle is just the thing
for a slow summer day…in the leaden heat,
silent only for the quiet buzzing,
cicadas or mosquitos?

Piece this into a pattern:
map steps to a point to pitch a tent
by connecting 13 “youth” in pieces.
( AKA "growing from a child to a man")

Watch the shapes nudge and turn
Colors clash or line up
Edges emerge as matches
Concave with convex

The puzzle grows in unity
pieces form the whole
matrix mapped in moments
of cohesive communication.

10-50-100-200-1000 piece puzzle,
what can you handle?
We don’t count the contents,
they’re complete in the one final image.


This Fathers Day has been a gratifying full circle for me. One gift my father gave to me, before he died at the age of 66, was the annual 10--12 day backpack trip in the high Sierra Nevada mountains.  This year I met a personal goal to take my boys and the Boy Scout troop on, a first for many, a backpack trip.  Although it was merely one night and only in the nearby river canyons, it was a start.  Thank you, Dad.........