(For 2012 National (US) Poetry Month celebrations)
There is just something about a Walcott poem. Enjoy!
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 youall 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
From Collected Poems 1948-1984 by Derek Walcott. Copyright © 1986 by Derek Walcott. Permission for reprint
Kinna Reads 
I love Walcott’s poetry! I have a few of his books in my library and I love his stuff. Years ago I used to do poetry readings and in doing so I shared more than one of his poems.
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How spectacular to wander onto your blog and find this salute to such a… an Everything-ian poet, really. If you’ve not yet read it, you might thrill to his Jean Rhys, which you can find here.
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Thanks for link to the poem. And thanks for wandering onto my blog! Walcott is indeed an “Everything-ian poet”!
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Dereck Walcott is one of my favorite poets. Thank you for sharing this poem!
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What a lovely poem, thank you for sharing.
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My pleasure, Amy.
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Oh, I love this. Thank you for sharing it with us!
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You are most welcome, Heather.
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beautiful lines.
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Yes, Nana. I miss you!
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I just recently discovered Walcott via this poem. Love it so much. It’s one of those pieces of writing that really fills you from the inside out.
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Have you read “A City’s Death By Fire”? Another splendid poem but then again most of his work is brilliant.
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love Derek Walcott’s poetry
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I hear you.
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For Oliver Jackman
It’s what others do, not us, die, even the closest
on a vainglorious, glorious morning, as the song goes,
the yellow or golden palms glorious and all the rest
a sparkling splendour, die. They’re practising calypsos,
they’re putting up and pulling down tents, vendors are slicing
the heads of coconuts around the savannah, men
are leaning on, then leaping into pirogues, a moon will be rising
tonight in the same place over Morne Coco, then
the full grief will hit me and my heart will toss
like a horse’s head or a thrashing bamboo grove
that even you could be part of the increasing loss
that is the daily dial of the revolving shade. love
lies underneath it all though, the more surprising
the death, the deeper the love, the tougher the life.
The pain is over, feathers close your eyelids, Oliver.
What a happy friend and what a fine wife!
Your death is like our friendship beginning over.
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Ah Parrish, thanks for posting this. The line: “then the full grief will hit me and my heart will toss like a horse’s head or a thrashing bamboo grove that even you could be part of the increasing loss that is the daily dial of the revolving shade” says it all. Walcott’s way of imbuing his homeland in the Caribbean into most of his writing is wonderful. He just has a way of expressing, or being earnest and touching our hearts at the same time.
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