Each Monday, I have the honor
of teaching yoga for moms who come to practice with their new to new-ish
babies
in a postnatal yoga “Mommy & Me” class. This week our theme was
Unfolding. There wasn’t enough of a pause for the entirety of the
following poem to be read in the lively experience
of our class, so I share it here now along with a few images of the
sweet
people who gathered to share some yoga on a day when, as class began it
rained
for three whole minutes in mostly sunshine.
Please pay attention to the
last line, “Feast on your Life.” Please
notice how the whole poem reminds us that as we make our way through the
moments of our lives, each of us has a friend in our own soul, a friend who’s
just waiting for us to recognize these gentle eyes.
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 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.
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 Wolcott
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