Love After Love
The time will come
When, with elation
You will greet yourself arriving
At your own door, in your own mirror,
And each will smile at the other’s welcome,
And say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
To itself, to the stranger who has loved you
All your life, whom you ignored
For another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
The photographs, the desperate notes,
Peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
– Derek Walcott
Hmm… I’ve been going through some earlier journals, mid 90s. Not sure if I’m quite feasting, but fascinating in its own way, meeting myself then! Not always sure what to do with her… I should probably smile at her more.
Thanks!
Hey Dora, I think smiling at her would be a great start.
In the book, Ten Poems to Change Your Life, Roger Housden writes, “We spend much of our lives trying to make ourselves – to create the life we want…we live in a culture wedded to the fantasy of self-determination and self-made men. Yet there is another school of thought…just as the oak tree is there already in the acorn, the babe carries on its brow and in its eyes the mark and signature of its later life. Not the details, perhaps, but the particular energetic response to life, the quality of engagement that is unique to him.”
I believe we’re a combination of the two; the good ol’ Nature AND Nurture idea.
I’m having fun with my new-found Friday theme of a poem for the weekend. Glad you enjoyed this one.
Brilliant! I know just the person to send this to.
It’s a pretty fabulous poem eh? I’m glad you have someone to send it to:) I think it’s genius.
Powerful.
Glad you thought so too, Catherine.
It’s a poem from a great little book that I reread often. I highly recommend it. It’s called, Ten Poems to Change Your Life by Roger Housden.