This poem by Derek Walcott (Collected Poems: 1948-1984) came to me from a Facebook feed from Brain Pickings (https://www.brainpickings.org). To me it expresses the work of the third act of life. Some achieve it, some don’t. I’m still working on it.
LOVE AFTER LOVE
The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own front 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.
