In the Hopper.

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.

(One Art, Elizabeth Bishop)

While it seems to be just the start of another ordinary day...a message came in and I quickly learnt about the sudden passing of an acquaintance over breakfast.
It seems like a bad dream, like those that choke you to tears but it happened again- the undesirable way of how a reminder should appear and punched right into my foolishness.

We have no control over life.

Not a day that goes by is like the ones we know, nothing is another but always in the hopper of something astonishing or immensely abrupt.

Can anyone be ready enough for living or leaving?