Wednesday, March 25 – Derek Walcott

March mid-month 2020

“The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror”

A good friend sent me this poem which, she thinks, sounds like the poems that move me.

She’s right about Derek Walcott.   His poem makes a place where I feel welcome and at home.  A good way to begin a day when  the morning teases me with hints of Spring sunshine, a fine day.  Even as we listen to one another’s whispering and turn our attention to the loves of our lives, surprising us again today.

Best to read the poem out loud, with pauses. without hurry.

john sj

 

Today’s Post   “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 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.

– Derek Walcott

Sir Derek Alton WalcottKCSL OBE OCC (born 23 January 1930) is a Saint Lucian– Trinidadian poet and playwright. He received the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is currently Professor of Poetry at the University of Essex

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