Love after Love

[Lisa Walford]

Derek Walcott lived in the Caribbean and was a Nobel Laureate recipient in 1973 for his poetry. I stumbled upon this poem when I searched for "best poems". This is the first time that I lowered myself to such a task, when seeking an inspirational gift for our poetry sessions. And I was duly rewarded with this gem. 

Often people come to a "pranayama" class hoping to relieve stress, to learn how to breath properly, to reinforce their meditation practice, or because someone suggested that the practice might help them calm down. I consider the pranayama practice as a threshold between engaging with the world around us to becoming more absorbed with the Self within. This threshold is a complex one, as we are so acclimated to orienting ourselves with everyone and everything outside of us. 

This poem invites us, in a gracious and welcoming way, to sit down within and rest awhile; to perhaps fall in love with the journey that has brought you here and to who you are now.        

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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.