"The stranger who has loved you all your life"

Source: Etsy

This little poem has been on my fridge for a couple of months now. Stuck between the pictures of Tessa Jean and the wedding and graduation invitations and recipes, I found it again today. My mom gave it to me. She's a retired high school English teach and she can find the perfect poem for most everything. I think it's so lovely. Hope you enjoy it, too.


"Love After Love" by Derek 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 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.