Are losers always weepers? Finders keep
Too often what they should have thrown away;
Some few lose everything, then later seem
To have found something important; many take
Great pains to lose
What they’re thus less
Bereft, than rid, of at last.
Finding this small, bright object, owner past
All identifying, for some years lodged
Behind the sofa in the forgotte. dust
And now, at moving-time, removed, was not
By any means a sign, then, of our luck,
But rather a bit of baggage
Transferred to someone’s advantage.
But whose? Tagged with no badge of ownership,
It gave no hints about its time of loss
(Was it that summer?), but seemed to insist
On its best property: it gleamed, we saw,
Not saying, “Ha!
A Jewel!” nor “How?”
But somehow, only “Whose?”
(If property were theft, then theft would lose
All meaning, being inauthentic possession)
One tenth of the law flashed up in a blaze
Of value from its face, then, in a second
Receded into the dust. We couldn’t claim,
Except in guilty whispers,
That it really wasn’t ours.
A pearl is a pearl anywhere: if lost,
Lost only to its owner; no great price
Redeemed this, once, from ownerlessness, bought
The privilege of losing it one night,
Of being filled
With grief, as it fell,
Its loss becoming the fault
Of someone, as it turned a somersault
And buried itself in silence (as we sow,
So do we hope to reap.) But what we felt
In finding it was our loss: was it cold
Or sultry? damp or dry? who was there then?
–Before our packing was finished,
A piece of the past had vanished.
O Loser, keeper of the scene you gained
By our loss, guard it well: try to remember
The soft light in our living room, the pale
Warmth of the dying fire that would settle
Over the fine
Silence, the phone
Perhaps, interrupting, found
To be someone we’d not expected (sound
Of recognition from the room: “O have
Them come!”) and much, much later when the friend
Should have gone, leaving five of us, the sad
Shudder of sudden loss. And O, by then
Our find was assured; our seizure
Of loss, a well-planted treasure.
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