Derek Walcott, Poem of Peace

Nancy FlynnApostrophe Blog Archive, Poetry

The Apostrophe Blog

Musings on Writing and Life.

A poem today, actually. Love this one.

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 image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

—Derek Walcott

The public domain image above is a stereograph view of the 1872 World Peace Jubilee in Boston, Massachusetts.

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