The Art of Losing

One Art
Elizabeth Bishop
1976

The art of Losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss in no disaster

Lose something every day.
Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hours bedly 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 house went.
The art of loosing 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 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
thought I may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

grazie Rebecca
io ti aspetto sempre