LEARN TO LOVE YOURSELF

If you are like most of Americans admiring everyone around, and not noticing how special Y O U are, read this beautiful poem and get guided by the person who changed herself through its words.

*SAVED BY A POEM

            SELECTED BY KIM ROSEN

LOVE AFTER LOVE

                        By Derek Walcott

The time will come

when, with elation,

you will great 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 yourself.

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.

DEVOTION

These words saved my life.  At the time, I thought I didn’t  like poetry.  But in the midst of a suicidal depression, I heard “Love After Love”.  The lines “Give back your heart…to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another” startled me.  I realized I had spent most of my life ignoring that “stranger” in order to pay attention to other people:  to take care of them, to please them, to earn their love or approval.  That line shifted my gaze 180 degrees to behold myself finally “arriving at {my} own door.”  I learned the poem by heart and have repeated it like an affirmation thousands of times to myself and others.  Every time I do, I am returned to the feast of my own presence.  KR

PRACTICE

Have you ever been saved by a poem?  Or perhaps for you the lifeline was a song, or a chant, or a prayer-for these are also poetry.  I invite you to make a list of the poems, prayers, or lyrics that have been teachers for you.  Perhaps you, too, will find that the right poetic phrase can melt your defenses and invite you to the feast of your own being.

SPIRITUALITY & HEALTH  MAY/JUNE 2013