love after love: 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.

-taken from http://or-so-i-feel.blogspot.com/2009/04/love-after-love.html

today i miss him...

today i woke up and stumbled into my bathroom....when i opened my eyes and looked up, i saw him. i saw him in the downward stumble in the outside corners of my eyes and in the plumpness of my cheeks and in the shocked gaze at the mirror. i see myself becoming him & it both delights and scares me.

it delights me that i don't have to wake up in panic that i've forgotten him, because as soon as i get to the mirror, there he'll be.

it scares me because i don't get to hear what he says about this me...the me that weeps for the lost days and the me that rejoices when i recognize his spirit swelling up in me greater with each day.

some days i wish he'd just show up and laugh with me...or at me. they'd equally delight me. other days when all i can do is mourn...i wish he'd hold me and tell me that there's something better coming. when i catch myself whistling...i wish i'd find him joining in with a triumphant grin...glad that his little girl can finally produce more than hot breath with her rounded lips. i wish i could share him with my friends. i wish i could share him with the world. i wish they knew that he was the best person i ever knew...even when i didn't know it.