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 (Write it!) like disaster.

- Elizabeth Bishop [1911-1979]
















The above -- taken on the streets of South Beach, Miami, by a vacationing Sarita who narrowly avoided a Floridan death by transport truck in the process. "Imagine," writes Sarita, "you were the person that lost that key... you get to your house, reach in your pocket... and all you find is a hole!" I'd like to take this time to point out that holes are people too.

And below, besides his and Kate's feet, Paul's well-timed discovery on the Bruce Trail, near Steel City's psychiatric hospital. The kind of photos that deserve their own soundtrack.