Poem Friday - One Art - Elizabeth Bishop

It's a grey morning and I need to get writing before the morning is gone. I've just found out that my AWP panel was not accepted. Bummer. The good news is that 2011 would have Elizabeth Bishop's 100th birthday and so there will be a birthday party for her in Washington DC. She is my touchstone poet, my travel poet, my poet who gave me permission to explore the world. I have taught her work in Seattle and in Cape Town, read her in odd airport hotels and in the House of Sky. Today I am in need of her company once again. One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop
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.