THE GIFT Poem by Arthur Sze

The pieces of this jigsaw puzzle
will form King Tut's gold face,

but, at the moment, they are bits
of color strewn on the floor.

These moments of consciousness
have no jigsaw fit—heartbeat

of a swallow in flight, bobcat
prints across the Windsor Trail,

premonition that joy lurks inside
a match, uprooting sunflower stalks,

tipping an urn from a bridge
so that ashes form a cloud,

The pieces of a life stay pieces
at the end. No one restores papyrus

once it has erupted into flame;
but before agapanthus blooms,

before the body scorches, razes
consciousness, you have time

to puzzle, sway, lurch, binge,
skip, doodle, whine, incandesce.