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 others welcome
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again 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 own life.
-Derek Walcott
I love this poem for so beautifully describing one of the most important but oh so difficult tasks to accomplish in this life phase.
JOURNEY INTO ELDERHOOD: It's a journey with many stops along the way and enriched by the people I meet. So, stop in and visit. You're welcome...
I love this too. Not easy to do, is it?
ReplyDeleteA great poem. And a thing to reflect on, surely.
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me to remember what I had forgotten and I'm so glad you posted it. Thanks, you!
ReplyDeleteIf only we could let go and feel the breeze and smell the air and freedom around us there for the taking. And yet we make our own doors and windows which so often lock us into the past and never allow us the freedom of tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteIt's a beautiful poem..
Dorothy from grammology
grammology.com