On My Walks
On My Walks
"It is possible to imagine a person so entirely that the image resists attempts to dislodge it."
Amy Hempel
One Art
Elizabeth Bishop
1911-1979
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.
On
My Walks
a column by
Kate Hill Cantrill
Kate Hill Cantrill is a writer and artist presently residing in South Jersey.
When she moved back home after two decades living in Austin, Texas and Brooklyn, NY, she began a photography project chronicling her daily walks.
She works as a nanny and an editor and is the author of the short story collection, Walk Back From Monkey School.