Marie / music

Just got this from Marie:

Begin forwarded message:

I forget if I ever sent you this one:

you are as present to my mind

as music to my ear

you are as far, as far from me

as music silent

Sent from my iPhone

Marie sent me this poem that she just stumbled across. Somehow it sounds to me like it belongs on the same page with ruminations about failure as a teacher or a spiritual discipline.

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.

Sent from my iPhone

Failure update

Just a quick note to update you.

You remember I was applying for a new job that would move me halfway across the country ... because my boss is demoting me because we have too many senior people in the organization? (Meanwhile nobody else I know at my level is being demoted. Must just be a vote of confidence, huh?) 

Well I heard back today. I did not make it even as far as the interviews. They've got some really strong candidates and blah, blah, blah ....

Something to discuss with Sister Failure.

Or maybe Billy Crystal.