Imagine the mind being lost in others’ minds, which are as lost, if not more so… You walk through the glass doors, ask the red-haired guy to show you the book you were looking for… You pick it up, browsing through it all before opening the first page which reads:

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 everyday. 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, the 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.

“One Art,” from The Complete Poems 1927-1979, by Elizabeth Bishop

You can’t believe what you just read, so you read it again and again and once again… You walk out the same doors thinking these words are the best thing that could happen to you at that moment… The lost moment of despair… The moments you miss, but then you realize the art of losing is not too hard to master!

S