How can there be Love after Love?

   Poetry is meant to say so much in so few words. Derek Wolcott (1930-2017) accomplishes that brilliantly while answering the big question implied in his title. In so doing, he gives us a gift beyond measure. 

   In addition, I created & narrated a 60 second cinema poem of images & supporting music to offer another way to experience Wolcott's genius. First, here is the text of his 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.

Click on this YoutTube link for the 60 second cinema poem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLAiXIiRNMY&feature=youtu.be

-Erie Chapman

Image: "Self-Portrait with Angel" by erie 1977 & 2019