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 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.

– Derek Walcott

Postscript:

I think that someday, this time will indeed come. I like the notion of seperate selves that are still the same, and of celebrating yourself – easier to do when it’s not you, somehow. And the last line says it all – feast, not nibble; sit down like you have a right to be there.

I haven’t read much Derek Walcott, to be honest – it’s something I hope to redress soon. I came across this poem here.

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