Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Derek Walcotts' Love After Love

I posted this poem first on September 14, 2007, but felt moved to re-post now. Love After Love is a most beautiful and surreal poem. Walcott is the Caribbean's own Nobel Laureate (St. Lucia).

by Derek Walcott

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.

5 comments:

Azikiwe said...

yeh man...on the money !...but I query the durabilities of such emotion in a wide & fast non-linear world...

Rethabile said...

Always good to read this. It's a magnificent piece of work.

Rethabile said...

It's almost as if, if you changed a word or a comma in the poem, the effect will be compromised. That's what I call a perfect poem. I read it, and am awed by it: don't wanna touch it.

Sheer Almshouse said...

The poet wrote exactly as intended... and yes, it is a piece of art worthy of reflection in life's changing seasons.

Sheer Almshouse said...

I just read this poem again...

I believe that my time has come yet again... If I feast on my life...will there be famine tomorrow?

 
Copyright 2009 TwentySomething+ Monologue. Powered by Blogger Blogger Templates create by Deluxe Templates. WP by Masterplan