One Art

I heard Elizabeth Bishop's poem One Art on Fresh Air today. I really liked it. Light and breezy with a punch to the gut (at least for me) at the end. Would that I had it in my back pocket in recent months as my mother was dying from Alzheimer's.

- J

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.

"Self Employed" by Harvey Shapiro

I really like this poem by Harvey Shapiro. Its images are sure and painted with economy. You can read it, or listen to it here.

- J

"Men at the Gates"

Apropos of yesterday's post came this poem, "Men at the Gates" by Gary L Lark. Its about men waiting for a closed factory to open, men who see themselves as builders and cannot adjust to how the world now sees them. I am not sure how much of a poem comprises fair use, so I will only quote its ending:

They wait for the world
to make sense again,
where calluses grow on your hands
and the soreness in your back
means you're worth a damn.

Read the whole thing.

- J

A Tuft of Flowers

I have been thinking about this poem:

A Tuft of Flowers
Robert Frost - A Boy's Will (1913)

I went to turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.

The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
Before I came to view the leveled scene.

I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.

But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
And I must be, as he had been,—alone,

‘As all must be,’ I said within my heart,
‘Whether they work together or apart.’

But as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless wing a ’wildered butterfly,

Seeking with memories grown dim o’er night
Some resting flower of yesterday’s delight.

And once I marked his flight go round and round,
As where some flower lay withering on the ground.

And then he flew as far as eye could see,
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.

I thought of questions that have no reply,
And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;

But he turned first, and led my eye to look
At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,

A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared
Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.

I left my place to know them by their name,
Finding them butterfly weed when I came.

The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
By leaving them to flourish, not for us,

Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him.
But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.

The butterfly and I had lit upon,
Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,

That made me hear the wakening birds around,
And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,

And feel a spirit kindred to my own;
So that henceforth I worked no more alone;

But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;

And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.

‘Men work together,’ I told him from the heart,
‘Whether they work together or apart.’

I think this is a good deal of what gives work meaning; shared purpose and shared values. I think this is a lot of what has been missing from my work. My company was gobbled up by a larger company this year and my new company is a wholly owned subsidiary of a multinational corporation of very dubious reputation. The new company is based elsewhere and they appear to have a paternalistic patronizing attitude towards employees. We know them, so far, mostly through the policies that come down or the marketing campaigns that are tried out on employees first. I have always worked mostly alone, staring at a screen all day, but I have not always felt alone.

On the other hand, seen from the perspective of the mower: some nut disturbing my lunch with crazy talk about flowers and butterflies. What was he smoking?

- J

(The poem is in the public domain. The scythe image is by Chmee2, is in the public domain, and was found here.