It is so hard to see the sea in which we swim, and so precious to get a glimpse of our own lives. A doorknob turning after a journey big or small, a greeting in the eyes of a loved one, a memory that floods back with a sniff of perfume – all can bring us home to ourselves.

Dear ones, as we swirl in the sea of our times,

may we cherish these flashes of clarity.

May we feast on our own precious lives.

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 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.