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.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47536/one-art
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47536/one-art
