Poems

“Love After Love” by Derek Walcott 

A drawing of a glowing pink lotus with an orange and red light in the center, set against a backdrop of blue and yellow. Goes with the poem Love after Love by Derek Walcott 

Art by @awe.and.devotion

Love After Love 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.

-Derek Walcott

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