Learning the Art

 I have been thinking of this poem since I received it a couple of days ago. I do not quite understand the last line, but regardless, there is some good advice here. Learning to accept loss is important and helps keep bitterness at bay as we learn the art of compassion. Growing  accustomed to not having everything at our beck and call is a spiritual practice that helps us understand that often what seems to be a disaster is actually just a setback. Be gentle with that word disaster, and invite God into the empty places. If we can do that, we will find more than what we think we are looking for.   

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.

"One Art" by  Elizabeth Bishop  

   

photograph: San Leandro, October 2021. Our neighborhood persimmon trees are not as heavy laden as I have seen in the past. I think it has just been too dry. Something I must learn to hold lightly.