Meeting self

It has been a while since I have written here. The poem below came as a needed and friendly reminder. Of? For me of the balance of being with self (and how difficult maybe scary that can be) and then being able to be with another or others. A tightrope walk indeed.

And an aspiration.

Love After Love

(Derek Walcott)

The time will come

when, with elation,

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror,

and each with a 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 iteself, 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.