Love After Love: A Poem About Mindfulness

At the end of track 3, of Elisha Goldstein's CD, "Mindful Solutions for Stress, Anxiety, and Depression," he recites this moving poem by Derek Walcot. Each time I hear it, I get a little closer to self-acceptance. And ironically enough, the day that I emailed Dr. Goldstein to write out the poem for me, I saw that a Group Beyond Blue member had posted it in a thread.

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 have 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, "Love after Love"