Friday, April 11, 2008

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

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.

-- Elizabeth Bishop

"I don't want that to go away. I don't want to forget."
"I'm sorry, Dory, but I . . . do."
--Finding Nemo


HEART, we will forget him!
You and I, to-night!
You may forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.

When you have done, pray tell me, 5
That I my thoughts may dim;
Haste! lest while you're lagging,
I may remember him!

--Emily Dickinson

"I'm ready to get hurt again."
---Michael Scott, "The Office"


YOU left me, sweet, two legacies,—
A legacy of love
A Heavenly Father would content,
Had He the offer of;

You left me boundaries of pain 5
Capacious as the sea,
Between eternity and time,
Your consciousness and me.

--Emily Dickinson

2 comments:

Alan said...

"Talk not of wasted affection; affection never was wasted."
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Heather said...

Holy Crap! That's my "it's never a mistake to care for someone" quote only for reals!!!!

Beck I'm sorry about that box elder bug in our apartment that finally up and died. I didn't know you felt so strongly about it. It was just a box elder bug, there will be others. Others who I don't doubt look better with a shaved head (what?)

Nevertheless R.I.P. Mr. Box Elder Bug we'll do our best to replace you.