Love After Love

Wake up to the smell of wood burning in the fireplace, hot cup of coffee with a small piece of banana nut bread bought at the farmers market before I walk out the door to face the day. Take a deep breath of crisp air. Walk to the car. So much to do today. Look at the sky, autumn blue, look at the leaves, a kaleidoscope of amber. I go on about my day, I go on about my life. Everything has changed yet everything is still the same. Driving, pass pumpkin adorned front yards. Maybe it's the change of seasons, maybe it is the feel of the holidays looming around the corner that make me smile. Holidays to be spent in a house that love is building. A house to be filled with treasures and memories and kids and hope.

Maybe it's just me.

Happy once again.

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.


-Derek Walcott