Feasting

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.

Sometimes, when the word well is dry, there's nothing to do but find inspiration in other people's creations. This has been one of my favorite poems since the first time I read it years ago. It hits me in the deepest, least visible places, in the land of mystery and tenderness, knowing and soul.

I miss writing. It's been my go-to thing for so long. A way that I express myself that comes pretty naturally. But I realized today - and I can't believe it's taken a while to see this - that what is not happening right now with words is happening with images.  I spend hours each day creating with my images. In short, I am finding, seeing, and expressing myself through my art! Whoa... Not only has this been a dream for so long, but I have known intuitively, have written about it here in fact, that somehow, in some way that I cannot know or understand, a huge part of this dark night journey has been and is about creativity.

My sister said something amazingly wonderful to me the other day. She said that when she looks at my latest photos, they look like me.

Wow.

And it brought this poem to mind... as I greet myself arriving at my own door... As I get it to stop bemoaning the absence of words and throw out the welcome mat, open my arms, sit and feast... It's almost too much to take in.