Wednesday, August 15, 2007

36

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 desparate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.


— Derek Walcott, from Collected Poems 1984-1984

Happy birthday to me.

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