Monday, November 10, 2008

Sunday, November 02, 2008

ditto, elizabeth bishop.

at the risk of putting up another emo post [yet again! eeep, i'm on a streak], i'm sharing this poem i came across while reading a melissa bank novel. i may as well have had written this poem myself. if it's possible for your spirits to rise & fall at the same time, then i believe mine just went through that exact (non)rise/(non)fall a moment ago.


One Art by Elizabeth Bishop

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.