Poem for Monday

I hope you had a real weekend. I did. Made a little art, took a trip to my favorite portuguese markets in New Bedford, made dinner for some great friends and miraculously none of it felt like it was on a list. The to-do piggie has been getting way too much attention from me lately. Sometimes the list just looms and I can't even see myself. Spending time alone is the best way I have to combat the feeling of not owing my life. Rilke gives some great advice, sort of THE advice for a couple in a committed relationship. "The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust." I'm lucky Paul does that for me. I love how Derek Wolcott's poem reminds me I am a feast. Becoming a stranger to myself usually explains most sadness, stress and frustration I feel. Hunger for myself. 

Love After Love

by David Walcott

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 image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.