'The fate of poetry'

 

“The fate of poetry is to fall in love with the world.” – Derek Walcott

 

Born in January, 1930, Walcott authored two dozen books of poetry, 25 plays and several novels and earned the Nobel Prize in Literature for his efforts.  He also was a MacArthur genius grant recipient and winner of the coveted T.S. Elliot Prize in Poetry.  Here for Saturday’s Poem is Walcott’s,

 

 

Love After Love

 

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.