Love after Love...Renewal and Rapture

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.

-Derek Walcott

This poem was a revelation to me when I first heard it. And that’s what I did. I didn’t read it in a book, I sang it from a manuscript, written and conducted by a masterful human being who taught me much about enchantment through music. At the time, I was singing with Conspirare, which is a notable professional chamber group, who has now received numerous Grammy nominations, wins and other accolades. And while it was an accomplishment to be singing among such talent, the importance of those experiences was entirely personal and spiritual in nature. This particular performance came when my older two children were 5 and 7, and my day job was a stay-at-home-mom. We rehearsed the piece, which was scribbled on manuscript paper, during the week-long rehearsal period leading up to the concert run. And by the time we were performing for hundreds, I had developed such an attachment and enmeshing with the piece, that the singing of it felt like rapture. Music and singing makes me slow down, take in words that link to time and melody, and allows me to connect with the divine. And so, it was impossible not to cry during each concert. At first, I had attempted stifling these emotions, but these efforts were futile. The tears simply had to fall, encompassing the regret, the sheer release, and the celebration that the melody and text encourages.

And so, this poem became something that I have revisited for many, many years, in different ways and at different times.  Its meaning has transformed, just as I have grown and changed.

About 5 years after that initial introduction, I was redecorating my kitchen and firmly decided that I wanted some kind of wall plaque displaying the closing line of the poem: feast on your life. I began searching for individual letters, perusing shelves at Hobby Lobby, and gathering a few E’s and A’s.  I had chosen letters of differing fonts and worked for months to collect them all, but was never content with any final selections, so the phrase never made it up on my wall at that point. Then, a couple of years later, my best friend tried to find them all, as a going away present for me when I was preparing to move with my family to London for two years. She, too, worked for months to finish the assortment, and finally presented them to me almost complete, hoping that I would be able to find the missing letter in the future. We were missing the F that appears in both “feast” and “life.” Therefore, the present offering was “east on your lie.” For a couple of reasons that are very personal, that’s what I did. I moved east on my lie.  I promise. I can’t make this shit up, ya’ll. And I didn’t realize any of this until I thought about it later, once I had moved home two years later, and had unpacked the letters from a moving box.

In 2014, I had the full poem painted onto a large barn wood art piece that sat in my newly decorated house. Now the house of a fresh and newly divorced woman in her forties, and single mom 50% of the time. Don’t worry, it included the f’s. The whole poem suffers if you don’t give an f.  And 2 years later, the last phrase finally made its way into my kitchen, after Mike and I found small woven letters in a funky shop on our honeymoon.  It seemed appropriate that we picked them out together as we were setting the table for our union, our banquet of marriage.

It now represents recovery for me. A new greeting of myself in the mirror, who I knew all along, but ignored for another. The irony in the statement about wine, just makes it all the more relative to my experience. Renewal of self has brought new beginning other times in my life, and this is just one more time for growth. One more moment to inspect both the current image in the mirror, and take into account the reflection that comes from my connection to what’s inside.

I choose to sit and feast on my life…to sit at the banquet of all that is good here. And enjoy.

The poem assures me that I will love again. And I do. I love again. and again. and again. Through music, through pain, through joy, through rapture of the soul. This feast is a celebration of not gluttony, but nourishment of the divine in all of us.

Please listen to the song. Listen to the renewal that comes at least twice in the music, when the words are repeated…. “you will love again.”

I believe we are being inspired and taught all the time, if we just pay attention to the whispers.  This poem spoke to me years ago, because I was listening, and I choose to keep hearing its wisdom and grace.

Feast on this song. Feast on your life. You are worthy of love and beauty, and goodness is inherent not because you’ve earned it, but…. because of your very creation.

PS- and check out Conspirare at https://conspirare.org/ , on Spotify, Youtube or in person. This link is our actual performance in 2007. It will only preview about 2 minutes of the 6+ minute piece, unless you have a Spotify account.


Love after Love