The time will comeDerek Walcott
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.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Love After Love
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14 comments:
oh sharon. do i live that life :)
's true though, isn't it? when we love someone we tie up everything in them and forget our precious selves ...
Isn't that the essence of love? To lose oneself into another... Not for amateur, which come from the word 'amare' to love. Funny, isn't it?
I don't much about poetry but is this poem about being yourself again after having being someone you ain't for so long that you don't know what's good for you, or you don't even know how to be honest with yourself anymore because all you life you try to be someone you are not so people can look at your different. Wish I knew something.
Nice...though I don't seem to sense the poem's "elation" at recovering the self. It feels more exhortatory. The metahpor of food, feeding and eating sits well with my malaysian sensibility, but then again, if eating is seen as compensatory, rather than nourishing, it still carries with it a hint of wistfulness.
PS. Sharon, were u subtly 'whetting my appetite' or gently reminding me something, as well as Leon? I have been feeling rather lazy of late, and partly shelved the ideas for a while...I'll drop an e-mail later tonight.
anna - amateurs do things for the love of them!... losing yourself in love - sure - but what a high price you ahve to pay when things go wrong ... honestly, is it worth it?
bergen -seems like you know a lot ...
dreamer idiot - not doing this in a very critical way - just posting up what i like - what i come across that speaks to me and i hope will speak to others ...
and I put this up today because i needed the reminder that you can lose sight of your precious self sometimes ...
about your idea - i'm all for it!
What other choice do we have but to love? Being a hermit? We do not have to live love as a tragedy, we can stop the buck when we can't take it anymore. Anyway, we all go to... waste!
'Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all' Samuel Butler
'There is love of course. And then there is life, its enemy' Jean Anouilh
'Love and sex can go together and sex and unlove can go together and love and unsex can go together. But personal love and personal sex is bad.' Andy Warhol
I forgot to say: to me amateur means dilettante 'someone who does not involve himself completely', a dabbler. What do you call amateurish love? Flirt maybe, which comes from the French 'compter fleurette'.
oh we can write books and theses on love can we :)
for me love is only everything when the person is worthy of your affection. if the person's jailbait or a junky or something strange...
but i contradict myself. when i love, i love. i tell myself, at least i know i am able to love, in spite of the consequences.
coming from a grumpy old woman like me, that's a lot of disclosure hahaha.
you must post neruda. sigh.
Well, speaking of love, please have a look at my guestblogger's book review of Mishima Yukio's Spring Snow. Although this isn't my usual advertising place (haha), but I think this entry might interest the people here more than my regular readers.
Wow, that was lovely...
I turn over in pain,
Another night in emptiness
Where are the kisses?
Where are the tender strokes?
I refrain from expressing,
Another minute in silence
What are my boundaries?
What are my constraints?
I say goodbye with no response,
Another day in loneliness
Was I ever loved?
Was I disillusioned?
I seek a tender touch
Another moment in yearning
What did I do wrong?
What did I not do?
That's the problem Sham. We are always looking for mirrors... And no, self-love is not the solution when we do not get a reflection. Come as you are, it is poetic enough. I'll string your chords to sound better to my ear, to my heart.
sham - thanks for your poem ...
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