The Art Of Losing Isn't Hard To

I Caught A Tremendous Fish And Held Him Beside The Boat Half Out Of Water, With My Hook Fast In A Corner Of His Mouth. He Didn't Fight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I Stared And Stared And Victory Filled Up The Little Rented Boat From The Pool Of Bilge Where Oil Had Spread A Rainbow Around The Rusted Engine To The Bailer Rusted Orange, The Sun-cracked Thwarts The Oarlocks On Their Strings, The Gunnels-until Everything Was Rainbow, Rainbow, Rainbow! And I Let The Fish Go.

Dreams Were The Worst. Of Course I Dreamed Of Food And Love, But They Were Pleasant Rather Than Otherwise. But Then I'd Dream Of Things Like Slitting A Baby's Throat, Mistaking It For A Baby Goat. I'd Have Nightmares Of Other Islands Stretching Away From Mine, Infinities Of Islands, Islands Spawning Islands, Like Frogs' Eggs Turning Into Polliwogs Of Islands, Knowing That I Had To Live On Each And Every One, Eventually, For Ages, Registering Their Flora, Their Fauna, Their Geography.

I Hated The Salinger Story. It Took Me Days To Go Through It, Gingerly, A Page At A Time, And Blushing With Embarrassment For Him Every Ridiculous Sentence Of The Way. How Can They Let Him Do It?

The Art Of Losing Isn't Hard To Master.

It Is Like What We Imagine Knowledge To Be: Dark, Salt, Clear, Moving, Utterly Free.