Derek Wolcott’s poem “Love After Love” beautifully expresses a return to self, a celebration of our true nature, honoring our “coming home” with compassion and love.
May we all feast on our life lived true.
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 away your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.