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 - from Collected Poems, 1948–1984
Walcott’s poem is a quiet homecoming. It speaks to the moment when we stop chasing love in others and finally recognize it within ourselves. For so long, we stand outside our own lives, seeking validation, forgiveness, belonging - until one day, the mirror no longer feels like glass but a door.
“Feast on your life” is not indulgence, it is reclamation. It is learning to meet yourself without judgment, to treat your own presence as sacred. To love again the stranger who was your self - that is the beginning of peace.
