We all know that eventually we will lose everything—our life, those we love, even our planet. And most days we lose something—keys, our voice, a friend, our place in the novel we are reading. Loss is a constant in our lives, and Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) tells us in this great poem that losing is an art that is easy to master. She makes a joke of losing. Bishop, a friend of the poet Robert Lowell, wrote many great poems, and if you don’t know them I urge you to seek them out.

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.