Use All the Broken Bits

Life lessons from playing with lego as an adult

As a boy, my brother and I Played LEGO for hours; Constructing spaceships, and Intergalactic cities; We’d travel to, from our bedroom, Into our minds.

As years passed, our stories got broken; A snapped bit here, Chewed piece there, Other parts lost; Vacuumed into some universe, Never to be seen again.

Brand-new sets, Dwindled into fragments, No longer complete; Barely recognizable from the forms, We once held prized in our minds, But still, carry in our hearts.

The remnants of these stories, Stowed away in a closet, Gathering dust; Feeling impotent in its ability To any longer satisfy Childhood’s fading dreams.

My siblings had children, Resuscitating our imagination; I wondered, Where is that old collection Of stories, we stowed away? That, which was never lost; But waiting to be refound.

Every Thursday my niece visits To extract me from writing; We pull out the old collection, Uninterest in any promise a new set could offer; We play with the mismatched, Broken pieces of my childhood.

At first, nothing seems to fit; A messy, clumsy construction Of who knows what it will become. My four-year-old niece, Always encouraging, That’s amazing, Uncle Benji!

We build homes, not houses; Somehow a reflection, Of our unfolding consciousness. What is consciousness, Uncle Benji? It’s that beautiful garden you made From the broken pieces, honey.

But these aren’t broken pieces, Uncle Benji; These a little perfections, This one here, the way it’s snapped, There isn’t any other piece in the universe Quite like this one. Is that consciousness?

We smile and continue to play.