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 everyday. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent
the art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice fuerther, 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 evident
the art of losing is not hard to master
though it may look like ... like disaster.
(Elizabeth Bishop)
7 comments:
the things u lose are not meant for u . becoz they never made u feel full
life's like that. u lose some, u gain some. i've experienced ten yrs of insanity. i've lost ten yrs of my career. but i feel it was worth it. these ten years i lived in a beautiful, beautiful world, a world that i would not exchange for anything in this world. had i flowed with the stream i might probably have been an interventional cardiologist or a neurologist by now, but something would still b missing from my life. these ten yrs have given me that something. that's why i will always treasure these years.
Yay..let us all be losers then!
(One a more serious note)
Sometimes losing something is liberating. And then serendipity comes along.
After Great Pain, A Formal Feeling Comes
After great pain, a formal feeling comes
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Toombs
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?
The Feet, mechanical, go round
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone
This is the Hour of Lead
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons recollect the Snow
First-Chill-then Stupor-then the letting go
(Emily Dickinson)
DISENCHANTMENT - It dropped so low in my regard
It dropped so low in my regard
I heard it hit the ground,
And go to pieces on the stones
At bottom of my mind;
Yet blamed the fate that fractured, less
Than I reviled myself
For entertaining plated wares
Upon my silver shelf.
(Emily Dickinson)
i've always maintained that context and reader make a huge difference to how one might experience a poem. i might well sound blasphemous right now, but i love this poem primarily because it was featured in the film in her shoes, to match cameron diaz's roman a clef. i found her rendition of it far better than that of the president of my alma mater, who read it at a small milk-and-cookies gathering near a cozy fireplace.
bishop is one of the few moderns i actually like.
Ya, I like Bishop too. Interesting thing about this particular poem- she spent 15 years (!!!!!) writing and rewriting this.
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