The Map

Land lies in water; it is shadowed green.

Shadows, or are they shallows, at its edges
showing the line of long sea-weeded ledges
where weeds hang to the simple blue from green.
Or does the land lean down to lift the sea from under,
drawing it unperturbed around itself ?
Along the fine tan sandy shelf
is the land tugging at the sea from under?

The shadow of Newfoundland lies flat and still.

Labrador’s yellow, where the moony Eskimo
has oiled it. We can stroke these lovely bays,
under a glass as if they were expected to blossom,
or as if to provide a clean cage for invisible fish.
The names of seashore towns run out to sea,
the names of cities cross the neighboring mountains
—the printer here experiencing the same excitement
as when emotion too far exceeds its cause.
These peninsulas take the water between thumb and finger
like women feeling for the smoothness of yard- goods.

Mapped waters are more quiet than the land is,

lending the land their waves’ own conformation:
and Norway’s hare runs south in agitation,
profiles investigate the sea, where land is.
Are they assigned, or can the countries pick their colors?
—What suits the character or the native waters best.
Topography displays no favorites; North’s as near as West.
More delicate than the historians’ are the map-makers’ colors.

Excerpted from POEMS by Elizabeth Bishop, published in February 2011 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
Copyright © 2011 by the Alice H. Methfessel Trust. 5
Publishers note and compilation copyright © 2011 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. All rights reserved.

94567_01_1-344_r9mv.indd 5 12/21/10 12:59:05 AM

 At the Fishhouses

Although it is a cold evening,

down by one of the fishhouses
an old man sits netting,
his net, in the gloaming almost invisible
a dark purple-brown,
and his shuttle worn and polished.
The air smells so strong of codfish
it makes one’s nose run and one’s eyes water.
The five fishhouses have steeply peaked roofs
and narrow, cleated gangplanks slant up
to storerooms in the gables
for the wheelbarrows to be pushed up and down on.
All is silver: the heavy surface of the sea,
swelling slowly as if considering spilling over,
is opaque, but the silver of the benches,
the lobster pots, and masts, scattered
among the wild jagged rocks,
is of an apparent translucence
like the small old buildings with an emerald moss
growing on their shoreward walls.
The big fish tubs are completely lined
with layers of beautiful herring scales
and the wheelbarrows are similarly plastered
with creamy iridescent coats of mail,
with small iridescent flies crawling on them.
Up on the little slope behind the houses,
set in the sparse bright sprinkle of grass,
is an ancient wooden capstan,
cracked, with two long bleached handles
and some melancholy stains, like dried blood,
where the ironwork has rusted.
The old man accepts a Lucky Strike.
He was a friend of my grandfather.
We talk of the decline in the population
and of codfish and herring
while he waits for a herring boat to come in.
Excerpted from POEMS by Elizabeth Bishop, published in February 2011 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
Copyright © 2011 by the Alice H. Methfessel Trust.62
Publishers note and compilation copyright © 2011 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. All rights reserved.

94567_01_1-344_r9mv.indd 62 12/21/10 12:59:07 AM

 There are sequins on his vest and on his thumb.
He has scraped the scales, the principal beauty,
from unnumbered fish with that black old knife,
the blade of which is almost worn away.

Down at the water’s edge, at the place

where they haul up the boats, up the long ramp
descending into the water, thin silver
tree trunks are laid horizontally
across the gray stones, down and down
at intervals of four or five feet.

Cold dark deep and absolutely clear,

element bearable to no mortal,
to fish and to seals . . . One seal particularly
I have seen here evening after evening.
He was curious about me. He was interested in music;
like me a believer in total immersion,
so I used to sing him Baptist hymns.
I also sang “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”
He stood up in the water and regarded me
steadily, moving his head a little.
Then he would disappear, then suddenly emerge
almost in the same spot, with a sort of shrug
as if it were against his better judgment.
Cold dark deep and absolutely clear,
the clear gray icy water . . . Back, behind us,
the dignified tall firs begin.
Bluish, associating with their shadows,
a million Christmas trees stand
waiting for Christmas. The water seems suspended
above the rounded gray and blue- gray stones.
I have seen it over and over, the same sea, the same,
slightly, indifferently swinging above the stones,
icily free above the stones,
above the stones and then the world.
If you should dip your hand in,
your wrist would ache immediately,
your bones would begin to ache and your hand would burn
as if the water were a transmutation of fire
that feeds on stones and burns with a dark gray flame.
If you tasted it, it would first taste bitter,
Excerpted from POEMS by Elizabeth Bishop, published in February 2011 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
Copyright © 2011 by the Alice H. Methfessel Trust. 63
Publishers note and compilation copyright © 2011 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. All rights reserved.

94567_01_1-344_r9mv.indd 63 12/21/10 12:59:07 AM

 then briny, then surely burn your tongue.
It is like what we imagine knowledge to be:
dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free,
drawn from the cold hard mouth
of the world, derived from the rocky breasts
forever, flowing and drawn, and since
our knowledge is historical, flowing, and flown.

Excerpted from POEMS by Elizabeth Bishop, published in February 2011 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
Copyright © 2011 by the Alice H. Methfessel Trust.64
Publishers note and compilation copyright © 2011 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. All rights reserved.

94567_01_1-344_r9mv.indd 64 12/21/10 12:59:07 AM

 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:

faces, 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.

Excerpted from POEMS by Elizabeth Bishop, published in February 2011 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
198
Copyright © 2011 by the Alice H. Methfessel Trust.
Publishers note and compilation copyright © 2011 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. All rights reserved.

94567_01_1-344_r9mv.indd 198 12/21/10 12:59:11 AM