Thursday, January 17, 2008

Rest In Peace



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.
(Elizabeth Bishop)

Monday, January 14, 2008

Sometimes...


...I am sick of being a grown-up. I want to go back in time and be a little girl under my parents' wings, whose only worries were that she could not have a toy everybody else had. Now I can have all the toys in the world, but it's not what I need or want. I'm praying for a miracle.