I have thought about this poem a lot lately. It just keeps popping into my head during quiet times. It is a beautiful poem by Derek Walcott. Whenever I read it, it reminds each moment is a fresh beginning and it passes with its own truth contained within it.
As I mature, I get a sense of both getting to know me better and, at the same, realizing how little I know about myself. These feelings would feel counter-intuitive if they did not feel so right.
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 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.
About ivonprefontaine
In keeping with bell hooks and Noam Chomsky, I consider myself a public and dissident intellectual. Part of my work is to move beyond (transcend) institutional dogmas that bind me to defend freedom, raising my voice to be heard on behalf of those who seek equity and justice in all their forms.
I completed my PhD in Philosophy of Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA. My dissertation and research was how teachers experience becoming teachers and their role as leaders.
I focus on leading, communicating, and innovating in organizations. This includes mindfuful servant-leadership, World Cafe events, Appreciative Inquiry, and expressing one's self through creativity. I offer retreats, workshops, and presentations that can be tailored to your organzations specific needs.
I published peer reviewed articles about schools as learning organizations, currere as an ethical pursuit, and hope as an essential element of adult eductaion. I published three poems and am currently preparing my poetry to publish as an anthology of poetry.
I present on mindful leadership, servant leadership, schools as learning organizations, how teachers experience becoming teachers, assessement, and critical thinking. I facilitate mindfulness, hospitality retreats. and World Cafe Events using Appreciative Inquiry.
I am writing and researching about various forms of leadership, how teachers inform and form their identity as a particular teacher, schools as learning organizations, hope and its anticipatory relationship with the future, and hope as an essential element in learning.
ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 
Oh, thank you for reminding me of this gorgeous poem, Ivon. I haven’t read it in years, after reading it so often for awhile that I had committed some of it to memory. Here’s to feasting on our lives….
I am glad to offer it up again for you. I love it and it keeps popping up for me on a regular basis. Life is a banquet and should be enjoyed and savoured as such.
Lovely poem…reminds me of this by TS Eliot…”We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” The lovely gift of aging, of truly seeing and accepting ourselves, is the doorway into our wisdom. Grateful for my life and that includes my wisdom and what is unknown and lies ahead. Lovely post. Thank you for this reflective moment. 😉
You are welcome. Thank you for the wonderful comment and the connection to TS Eliot.
Beautiful…thanks for sharing
You are welcome and thank you Kimberly.
Reblogged this on The Iniquitous: Church Crimes.
Thank you for the re-blog.
It’s my pleasure 🙂
Wonderful finding this here just now in my life. I had not read it before.
I am glad you enjoyed it Angeline.
I got tears in my eyes. Because this poem is so strong and real and true – I will print it and I will put it up on my wall. The wall I need to break throuhg to admit that I didn’t do a good job acknowledging that stranger – who’s me. Thank you so much for this post!
You are welcome. It is a powerful message and feels good for many people.
Yes it does. And thank you for sharing this to us
Dear Ivon, this moving poem has been very close to my heart in the last couple of months of my life too, coming up regularly in the quiet moments. It does feel right. Thanks for sharing it here! All the very best for the journey. True touch from Self to Self.
Thank you for a lovely comment. It seems it touched a few people. I love the reminder that when we slow down we find out who we really are.
Much needed at this hour. Thanks Ivon
You are welcome. I am glad it found a spot for you.
I came across that poem a few years back. It’s one of my favourites. Thanks for the reminder!
You are welcome Maurice. It keeps popping back up for me, as well as a reminder maturity is OK.
Very moving! Thanks for sharing it! 🙂
You are welcome and thank you.
Definitely a coming of mature age. I like.
It is a poem that reminds us maturing is OK and part of the process.
Yes it is.
permission. That’s the word in mind here–besides lovely. You have a knack for sleuthing the eloquent phrase.
Thank you for the lovely compliment.
As Doris Lessing once said – “You suddenly understand something you’ve understood all your life, but in a new way.” It is so hard to let our memory rest.
That is beautifully stated.
She is one of the best writers I have ever came across. Love her art. 🙂