I was sitting and writing through some things in a journal and was reminded of the poem "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop. Ever since choosing it as one of the poems to analyze for my poetry anthology in AP Literature, it has been something I remembered and connected with.
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 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.
In response to this I was musing about how the art of losing may be easy to master, but the art of grieving well is not.
For the art of losing may be easy to master -
Lost keys, lost papers, lost lands, lost people lost dreams
What you have may be lost all in a moment
But the art of grieving is difficult to master -
Lost keys, but new ones can be made
Lost papers, yes a lot of red tape
Lost lands - people - dreams
Now tears swell
For people and places and the dreams attached cannot easily be replaced.
