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 the stranger who was yourself.
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.
by Derek Walcott,
Nobel Prize Laureate for Literature,
Sea Grapes
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Poetry is not something I usually enjoy or "get", but this is very beautiful and powerful. "You will love the stranger who was yourself" could also read you will love the child who was yourself. They are one and the same for me. Thank you so much for posting this. Carolyn L.
ReplyDeleteThis poem says it all. It has taken me a lifetime to get to this point. Some people never make it to this point.
ReplyDeleteAh, yes, Rambling Rose. It took me a long, long time as well.
ReplyDeleteIsn't this a truly wonderful poem? I can't remember now where I found it but I'm very glad I did.