evolution of inspiration or a day of words

I love my sidebar! I fill it with all sorts of goodies that prove to be a constant source of inspiration and pleasure. I mine it daily, checking on the latest from art sources, artists, quirky art pals and business advice columnists.

Today I hit The Altered Page (ever beautiful pictures) and got hit with poetry, which as you may know, I love. Seth shared James Wright's Beginning which ends evocatively,

"The wheat leans back toward its own darkness,

And I lean toward mine."

Then Seth speaks of, "This Day of Words, where bloggers post a poem so that we can all spend a day meeting "new words, new poets, new poems, new ways for the heart to beat." To see the list of other bloggers participating in this Day of Sharing Words, click here.

Awesome!

So, my contribution to the Day of Words, something that I've recently been hearing over and over in my head, though I hadn't read it in awhile, till today. It's probably not new to you, but perhaps you'd forgotten it.

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

Check here today to participate!