Elizabeth Bishop

Schoolwork has swallowed me up again, but I return, if only briefly, with a poem. It's been running through my head the last few days as I have searched for three separate things.

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is not disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss the, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

~Elizabeth Bishop

I truly admire Bishop's command of the villanelle. She makes this complicated form look completely effortless.

Please pray for the Common Room family! Their dear Equuschick is in the hospital with a bad horse kick.