Two villanelles have been on my mind today...

They were brought to my attention by important women in my  life.  The first poem, by Roethke, was in a home made card by the late, amazing, Ruth Slickman, lately of Cortez, Colorado.  She gave it to me for my birthday, around 2000, and it's stayed embedded in my imagination ever since.  The second, the Bishop poem, was given to me by my former wife, a great teacher or literature, particularly to me, and it still rings sadly, like a bronze bell.  I tried to teach it to my students in Viet Nam, but they were convinced that it was a poem about blithely letting go.  I think it's harder and less sentimental than that.

The Waking

Theodore Roethke

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.   

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.   

I learn by going where I have to go. 

We think by feeling. What is there to know?   

I hear my being dance from ear to ear.   

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. 

Of those so close beside me, which are you?   

God bless the Ground!   I shall walk softly there,   

And learn by going where I have to go. 

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?   

The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;   

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. 

Great Nature has another thing to do   

To you and me; so take the lively air,   

And, lovely, learn by going where to go. 

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.   
What falls away is always. And is near.   

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.   

I learn by going where I have to go.

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 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.