"Love After Love"

[Constance]

The second reading today at the Congregational Church of San Mateo was the poem "Love After Love" by Derek Walcott. It sums up perfectly how I felt about myself by the end of 2013, and how I continue to feel.

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, the to 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.

And that's where I'm currently at in my transition.

Amen, and Blessed be.