This Sunday finds me in Atlanta helping a daughter move into a new apartment. Unpacking yesterday, she couldn’t find an Important pair of black jeans. Her favorite pair. It’s kind of a disaster! (They’ll turn up, of course; surely they will.)
Her loss – and some of my own – brought to mind this half-remembered poem by Elizabeth Bishop…
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 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 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.
*
August 7, 2022 at 4:54 am
Fabulous
August 14, 2022 at 7:13 am
Xoxo
August 7, 2022 at 6:32 am
So poignant and so fitting for this time of year with all of the transitions. Very different from when they were 5 or 6 or 10.
August 14, 2022 at 7:13 am
I’m trying to remember the exact lines the witch sings in “Into the Woods” that are so powerful, about children… Something along the lines of “children go from something you love to something you lose”… xoxo
August 7, 2022 at 8:13 am
Perfect
August 14, 2022 at 7:12 am
I think so too – xoxo
August 7, 2022 at 8:28 am
Mary Beth Wilson
August 7, 2022 at 8:29 am
Good to Consider! Thank you, enjoy Bacon!
August 14, 2022 at 7:11 am
Xoxo
August 7, 2022 at 10:34 am
So poignant, so true and so hard to accept.
xo
August 14, 2022 at 7:11 am
Xoxo
August 7, 2022 at 11:33 am
I love this poem so much. Thank you! ❤️❤️❤️
August 14, 2022 at 7:11 am
Xoxo
August 7, 2022 at 11:52 am
Thank you. As always, very true.
August 7, 2022 at 3:13 pm
Appreciate everything in this post. Thanks for sharing.
August 14, 2022 at 7:10 am
Xoxo
August 14, 2022 at 7:10 am
Xoxo
August 7, 2022 at 5:45 pm
Thank you
August 14, 2022 at 7:10 am
You are welcome – xoxo
August 8, 2022 at 8:42 am
Love that!
August 14, 2022 at 7:09 am
Me too (!) Xoxo