Letter to N.Y. -- Elizabeth Bishop

(Poem #162)Letter to N.Y. In your next letter I wish you'd say where you are going and what you are doing;  how are the plays, and after the plays  what other pleasures you're pursuing: taking cabs in the middle of the night,  driving as if to save your soul  where the road goes round and round the park  and the meter glares like a moral owl, and the trees look so queer and green standing alone in big black caves  and suddenly you're in a different place  where everything seems to happen in waves, and most of the jokes you just can't catch,  like dirty words rubbed off a slate,  and the songs are loud but somehow dim  and it gets so terribly late, and coming out of the brownstone house  to the gray sidewalk, the watered street,  one side of the buildings rises with the sun  like a glistening field of wheat. —Wheat, not oats, dear. I'm afraid  if it's wheat it's none of your sowing,  nevertheless I'd like to know what you are doing and where you are going. -- Elizabeth Bishop

It is Marvellous to Wake Up Together -- Elizabeth Bishop

(Poem #40)It is Marvellous to Wake Up Together It is marvellous to wake up together At the same minute; marvellous to hear The rain begin suddenly all over the roof, To feel the air suddenly clear As if electricity had passed through it From a black mesh of wires in the sky. All over the roof the rain hisses, And below, the light falling of kisses. An electrical storm is coming or moving away; It is the prickling air that wakes us up. If lighting struck the house now, it would run From the four blue china balls on top Down the roof and down the rods all around us,  And we imagine dreamily How the whole house caught in a bird-cage of lightning Would be quite delightful rather than frightening; And from the same simplified point of view Of night and lying flat on one's back All things might change equally easily, Since always to warn us there must be these black Electrical wires dangling. Without surprise The world might change to something quite different, As the air changes or the lightning comes without our blinking, Change as our kisses are changing without our thinking. -- Elizabeth Bishop

Casabianca -- Elizabeth Bishop

(Poem #23)Casabianca Love's the boy stood on the burning deck trying to recite "The boy stood on the burning deck". Love's the son stood stammering elocution while the poor ship in flames went down. Love's the obstinate boy, the ship, even the swimming sailors, who would like a schoolroom platform, too or an excuse to stay on deck. And love's the burning boy. -- Elizabeth Bishop

One Art -- Elizabeth Bishop

(Poem #7)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