One Art

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.

I'm back! Did you miss me!?  Well I think I get this poem a little more now than I did in the past but please Ms Bishop you'll wear yourself so thin that you'll disappear.  Hmm. 

I still haven't decided what to enter in Strokestown and I didn't write a new poem but I edited and changed a poem I wrote a few years ago which I always liked but it was missing something.  And I might edit another poem or two from that period.  It doesn't really matter about the competition but it's good to aim for something.

I saw fog coming off the Boyne this morning which was a strange sight.  Someone said that it happens because the air is warm and the water of the river so cold.  The evenings are gradually lengthening out and I'm really looking forward to Spring.  When will the daffodils be out?  I was in fact thinking today that we're slowly but steadily making our way through January and writing 2011 instead of 2010 on forms etc. is becoming easier.

I'm not happy that I'm not writing more but there's not much point grumbling and the only thing to do is to put one's head down and do some work.  I've been toying with the idea of moving where I write into the room next door, it has a desk and perhaps a change would be good.  I'm off now to do something, at least this blog helps me focus more. :P