Love After Love
I would not describe myself as a poetry fan. While it is probably obvious that I love words, poetry often seems to fly over my head.
However, sometimes I come across a piece of poetry that flies right into my head and travels until it lodges itself in my heart where it stays forever like a beautiful song that I never tire of hearing.
This is the case with Derek Walcott’s Love After Love, which lives on an orange piece of paper stuck to my kitchen cupboard with stickers for a frame.
Since it was the inspiration for this blog’s title, I thought it made sense to share.
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
These days, I do feast on my life.
I do not feast on my life because it is perfect and worry free. I do not feast on my life because I have everything I want. I feast on what I have learned from my life up to now and the delicious possibilities that lie ahead..
I feast on the reality that my future will not be my past and I know this because the present is not my past.
The truth is, I’m not sure I really understood what that meant until now…
arriving at your own door 
It’s funny, the first time I read your blog the title gave me a sense of self reflection. I remember thinking “Arriving at my own front door? How do I get there?” I’m learning you get there one step at a time. Reading this book (Eat, Pray, Love) and your posts are like gentle guides. You can help me find my neighborhood but the door part’s up to me.
You can help me find my neighborhood but the door part’s up to me.
How beautiful and so very, very true. It has taken me years to get this, but understanding is liberating.
Thank you so much for your beautiful words. They inspire me, and I’m beginning to get that this must be what we’re here for, to inspire each other.
So, Thank you!
Jenny, I’m just now getting into poetry myself and having been experimenting writing it, I feel my mind has gained a little flexibility to read it.
This poem you share here is, to me, very relatable. The title is so simple yet so compelling. I’ve always thought your blog title is so poignant and now, seeing it in the context of this poem, is really inspiring.
And this line: sit. feast on your life — reading and saying it has such a calming effect. I can only imagine the effect when remembered and lived.
This is why I love this poem so much. It always has a wonderful affect on me each time I read it.
I love your blog. You write so well and your posts are always inspiring
Thank you for sharing
xx
lesley
Thank YOU Lesley.
The reality that others are inspired, inspires me.
Hi Jenny,
I share the same feelings about poetry. Every once in a while a poem will just strike me as incredibly moving. That is the goal of all the arts… to be able to inspire that feeling. It need not be an intellectual endeavor… we just need to listen to our heart. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you Rob. That is so true about the arts. I shudder to imagine life without them, which is something I’ve been known to do as I see my own industry dying a slow and painful death. I am really quite fearful of what will happen if we continue to devalue artistic expression. Thank goodness for those of us who can’t stop!
That is a beautiful poem Jenny. Thank you for sharing. I am so happy you are happy with your life at this moment. It is true, we must be happy about the life we have now, because the life we have now IS the only one we have.
Thanks Ollin,
That is so true. It is such a relief to finally begin to get it. I hope someday that we all will.
That’s a poem that leaves me sitting with my heart splayed open, taking in the silence and the beauty around me. Love it. Also love your post on Gratitude. You travel on the river of the heart, Jenny – many blessings
And many blessings to you too Kathy. Thanks for giving me yet another reason to smile.
Hi Jenny — thanks, that definitely had a poignancy to it. Through all the roles we try to play in this life and all we try to accomplish, there’s always a Self there that’s waiting, isn’t it, with infinite patience, to meet us again — and of course its patience is boundless because it, itself, is boundless and timeless.
Isn’t that the truth?
Thanks for stopping by Chris!