I made a goal this year (not a resolution, I refuse to make resolutions) to write every day and I've stuck with it. This is one of my longest-lived resolutions thus far. Sometimes I write a word or two, someones 10 pages, sometimes a poem, but I write something every day.

My laptop currently has some issues. It's time for me to buy a new battery, but it hasn't been at the tip-top of my priority list, since I can still plug it in and it works fine. The problem is that if the plug gets bumped, the computer shuts off instantly, releasing whatever I've just written into the ether. Bummer. After doing this several times (once when I was helping my daughter with her Sterling Scholar application (WOOT SHEYENNE!)), I thought of Elizabeth Bishop and my favorite poem by her - "One Art." I've loved this poem for years, but I get teary at the end every single time. She evokes emotion with such skill that I am helpless against the power of her words.

I've included the poem in this blog for your reading pleasure. Please let me know your emotional state by the time you make it to the end.

One Art - 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 beloved 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!) a disaster.