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

A beautiful thought that followed this (I am copying it from somwhere :-) )
"...I think the poem is saying: those who love always experience loss, but
this is no reason not to love - rather, to accept that in life you have to
deal with loss - and to accept this, means you can survive, and even start
living after your loss (and what better way to start the uphill struggle
than to build on the small, but well rehearsed experience of loss gained
in our daily lives)..."