Love After Love By Derek Walcott

This poem is about reconnecting with yourself after a time of forgetting who you are. It reminds you that healing starts with kindness toward yourself — learning to welcome your own presence again. In Love After Love, Derek Walcott encourages you to look at your reflection with patience and understanding. It shows that love can be found in simple moments of honesty and self-acceptance. Over time, you begin to feel at home within yourself again, grounded and whole.

Transcript

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 is yourself.

Give wine,

Give bread,

Give back your heart to itself,

To the stranger who has loved you all your life,

Whom you ignore for another,

Who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

The photographs,

The desperate notes.

Put your own image from the mirror.

Sit.

Feast on your life.

Love After Love by Derek Walcott.

Thank you.