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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Published:
March 29, 2011 – 08:00
Author:
By Madhu
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Speech

Except that it robs you of who you are,
What can you say about speech?
Inconceivable to live without
And impossible to live with,
Speech diminishes you.
Speak with a wise man, there’ll be
Much to learn; speak with a fool,
All you get is prattle.
Strike a half-empty pot, and it’ll make
A loud sound; strike one that is full,
Says Kabir, and hear the silence.

– Kabir
Translated by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra

Postscript:
I came across this on The New York Review of Books a few days ago and thought how much of the flavor and pithiness of the original is retained even in translation. I particularly love the line ‘Speech diminishes you.’
Kabir was a mystic poet, considered part of the Bhakti movement, which also included Meerabai, Tulsidas and Basava. More about Kabir here.

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Published:
March 28, 2011 – 08:00
Author:
By Madhu
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Forgetfulness

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

– Billy Collins

Postscript:

I love Billy Collins – there’s something so accessible about his poetry, something you can so readily relate to. It is about the commonplace, but it doesn’t seem commonplace when he’s writing about it. It’s real and important, even heartbreaking on occasion, in the same way that our lives are to us, in our narratives.

Listen to him read the poem out here, to an appreciative audience. Here is some biographical information on him.

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Published:
March 27, 2011 – 08:00
Author:
By Madhu
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