, one of my favorite poems by Elizabeth Bishop. Both are about a love lost and both feature an escalation (from the easy to the difficult).
When something's gone, I wanna fight to get it back again.
When something's lost, I wanna fight to get it back again.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, fight to get it back again
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
When signals cross, I wanna put a little straight on it
If there's no love, I wanna try to love again.
I'll say your prayers, I'll take your side, I'll find us a way to make light
I'll dig your grave, we'll dance and sing
What's saved could be one last lifetime
Hey, hey, hey
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, fight to get it back again
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Fight to get it back again, yeah, yeah, yeah
Fight to get it back again, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
---------------------------------
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.
What's fascinating (at least to me) is how the male side (Pearl Jam) is about action and the female side (Bishop) is about passivity. He's going to fight to get that lost love back again. She's going to accept it. (In astrology, masculine forces are deemed active1; feminine forces, passive. And look—there they are.)
But is this the way it is? Do men fight to hold on to relationships more? I tend to believe they don’t. That the woman usually holds on and says, “Let’s make things better. Let’s work on it.” But maybe I’m wrong.
Many a teen girl has heard this horrible thing: “If you love something, set it free; if it comes back, it’s yours, if it doesn’t, it never was.” My cousin had this embroidered on a pillow. I’ve always hated it. Oh, sure, it might be true. But, ugh. The schmaltz. And it makes me think of my cats… I love my cats, but no way I’m setting them free. They might come back or they might get hit by a car. And I know they’re mine: I feed them all the time.
But I get it. Let the universe take care of things. Is that passive? It might be, but maybe it’s also is often the right thing to do. Or maybe it varies by situation. That would be ideal. No rules
1: Which brings to mind, out of nowhere, the Schoolhouse Rock “Verb – That’s What’s Happening” episode – “I get my thing in action…”2
2: Which then reminds me of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention campaign from a few years ago to get kids more active: “Verb: It’s What You Do.”3
3: Which then makes me wonder, why the hell can I remember such things but can’t remember to pick up AA batteries at the store?
