Derek Alton Walcott, (born January 23, 1930) is a Saint Lucian poet and playwright. He received the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature and is currently Professor of poetry at the University of Essex.
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 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 your bookshelf,
The photographs, the desperate notes,
Peel your image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.