Andrew’s Journal

I always stay up too late. I am sure it is because I don’t want to confess that another day of life has passed and that I have not gotten everything I want from it.

Tonight’s bedtime avoidance was a movie titled, “In Her Shoes”. It is a movie about the relationship between two sisters. I won’t go into the details; I never like knowing much about a movie before I see it, so I won’t spoil it for you. Suffice it to say I was pleasantly surprised how good it was, I cried several times.

Of particular note were two poems read in the movie. They were wonderful and I can share them with you without spoiling any of the movie.

The first was a poem about loss by Elizabeth Bishop…

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

The second poem was about love by e.e. cummings…

i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me
(i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it

(anywhere i go you go,my dear;
and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear no fate

(for you are my fate,my sweet)
i want no world
(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart
(i carry it in my heart)

You can find commentary and analysis about them on the web, but is it really needed? Whatever the words say to you are valid and true enough. I hope they touch you and that you enjoy them as much as I did this evening.

Now I go to bed.