"Love after Love"
by Derek Walcott
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.
2 comments:
Once again, I thank you for introducing me to a favorite work I had not known--that has led me to an artist-friend I had not met (liked the youtube of him reading Tiepolo's Hound).
I also think that I am arriving, of late, at that time of life that Mr. Walcott describes.
I hope that the posting of this poem means that you, too, are finding out how to "Feast on your life."
You are a blessing.
Thank you John! It is always so nice to read your comments and to find we like similar things. And yes, I am finding this poem to really hit home for me.
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