Love After Love

Here's a poem we read in school today.

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.


It's a poem about finding and accepting yourself and who you are. Also, it could be interpreted as if you've been buy for a long time doing things for other people and putting yourself aside, and then finally taking the time to acknowledge yourself.

I felt myself welling up whilst the teacher was reading it. In the first stanza, it's not just saying you will greet yourself, but that you will do it with elation. Meaning, you will come to like yourself with loads of happiness. You will be more than just content with yourself and who you are and also what you look like "in your own mirror". I can't imagine myself ever liking me that much. Even when I'm feeling on top of the world there is always something about myself that I put down. It also talks about taking the good stuff in your life and looking at it, thinking about it and says "feast on your life", "feast" is used to describe when eating food, but not just eating it, really enjoying it. So the poet is saying look at all the good things in your life and really enjoy them. This can be really hard to do, especially if you're feeling really rubbish, the good things can be hard to see. You know they're there but you just can't see them.

Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. (Philippians 4:8)

A friend of mine is struggling with stuff at the moment and is finding it difficult to see anything positive in life. So I told her to make a list of all the people who care about her. All her friends and family and people she knows, and even those who she feels at this moment don't care, but deep down she knows they do. She came up with a bigger list than she first would have thought of. If we take the time to take note of the good things when they are visible, then we can look back over them when they seem invisible.

So go ahead...

"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"