For years, I listened to the Oprah channel on XM Radio. Around the time that Oprah’s television show went off the air, the radio channel suffered and I stopped listening. Earlier this week, I stumbled on the station again and Oprah was interviewing John Kabat-Zinn whose work I love. I stopped to listen for a minute and that was he then recited this gorgeous poem.

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.

-Derek Walcott