One Art

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 no 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 them, 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





Every time I read this it becomes a little more intriguing and powerful. I have no idea why. I mean, I can resonate with so much of it (especially this year)...but I'm not exactly sure that's why I like it so much. I'm not sure. I think a couple of the things that attract me to this is her practical almost sarcastic approach to a difficult subject; loss. She works through the poem and begins to discover that the things she is losing do actually mean something to her...especially when she starts losing things that are a huge part of her life. She can't act or pretend it away anymore. It is so powerful she has to write it...write it. One of the hardest things to do when thoughts hurt a lot. Taking the time to stay stationary in silence (hardest part right there) and fight the little lingering voices of depression and doubt that incessantly rain blows upon your mind and try to write down the things that hurt, you know, the ones you don't understand is very difficult. Seeing them on paper is two fold. It gives you a certain power over them. Look!, there they are on the paper...I wrote you. I kennen "know" you. I can call you by name. On the other hand, now they are there as a reminder. What you do with that reminder is your game. The written word is powerful. The spoken word is holy. Do both. Marilyn Hacker wrote a poem in response to this one. It's called " Going Back to the River". Read it...took my brain to a crazy place.