so many things seemed 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, One Art
Sonnet the Hedgehog
Rhyme schemes your mind screams from all these blind themes
bursting at the seams, while the world spins bright
as snow and light
as air, there’s nothing there
to keep you sane, just the blood in your veins,
just these fettered dreams, just the day at dawn,
greeting me with a breeze and a long yawn.
It opens and closes, you loved me well,
but away I go from this perennial hell.
Here’s to the stars, the ocean, the trees,
here’s to learning never to say please,
being hot for life, stepping on its heels
and standing still while everything reels-
and when it all comes crashing down on me
know there is nothing that is like to be.
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