Please, whoever sees her, ask
Luísa Porto, 37,
to let me know, to write,
to ask someone to tell
where she is.
I plead with the freelance reporter,
with the traveling salesman, with the Census person, with the passerby,
with anyone from the working and middle classes,
even with those from the rich upper one,
to take pity on an afflicted mother
and bring me my missing child
or at least send me some news.
She is tall, slim,
brunette, fuzzy face, clear white teeth,
birthmark near her left eye,
a bit cross-eyed.
Simple dress. Glasses.
Missing for 3 months.
Crippled mother calling.

…

*listen to the complete poem, by Carlos Drummond Andrade. (sorry, in Portuguese only…) >

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