even losing you…
2010
Another wonderful gem from a friend. It made me giggle (which is a good thing, I’d say)…
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 beloved 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!) a disaster.
~Elizabeth Bishop
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I wrote a piece about being single at holiday times for a dating website, and I ended it with a much less poetic expression of the pleasure of making do without something:
“…The best part about letting go isn’t that it makes room for something else, it’s that it gives you the time and space to enjoy what remains, and without the pressure to do things for tradition’s sake, we can figure out what–if anything–matters the most. I don’t know yet what holiday tradition I’ll jettison this year, but I’m looking forward to the feeling of freedom and lightness that doing so will bring.”
This one of my very favorite poems. It can make me laugh and feel very heavy about the world at the same time. And it is such a beautifully crafted villanelle!
Aw, I haven’t read this one since high school. I really like it.
I love this poem. Time does heal, I promise. It’s just that it’s hell in the mean time. As Winston Churchill said, “When you’re going through hell, keep going.”