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.
(Please note that my philosophy on sharing poems as fair use is on the (altogether too long and scruffy) “About page” for now, if you’re so inclined. I guess it seems worth pointing out from time to time.)
One Comment
Somewhere, if memory serves me from the dusty chalice of monastic days, there is a passage like this in The Dark Night of the Soul. Perhaps because I have not attained it, or have attained it and lost it, the links to the passage are fuzzy.
I believe that when one feels abandoned by God (in modern terms: abandoned by your Self), one must attempt an arduous and long journey to reconnect. For the conventionally religious or curious, the journey is outward to make amends with an object God that resides outside of one. The reconnection is basically with an alien self, but that is only my opinion. There are many happy people content with this connection. Most of them are Republicans.
For the mystic, the journey is shorter, is within oneself, and is more dangerous. It is a short journey made longer by ignorance, by resistance, by fear of rejection, by fear of failure, and, almost always a lack of funds. As I recall the passage in St. John’s book (or make it up), the seeker knocks at a rustic door not far from his or her domicile. In fact, it appears to be one’s own domicile. The Self opens the door and says, “Where have you been? I have been waiting for you so long. I was afraid you would never come.”
I can think of no political party to link to this form of seeker. There is no political party that believes that God resides within one, much less is oneself. Nevertheless, I have strayed from the topic. I think the poem you presented was about love. The necessary angel of my personality has carried me off on another tangent.
I do not know if I have succeeded in finding the door to the God of oneself. No, I do know. I did and did not knock loud enough. There was a sign on the door: “Back in 5 minutes.” I hate it when family dysfunction interferes.
Instead I have knocked at doors behind which are strangers that have the appearance of me, and by inference, the appearance of my Self. I call these strangers patients. As to whether God is within or without them, is of minimal consequence to me. What shall I call this experience? I spend my days sitting with my Doppelgangers. Of course, this is not the same as finding unconditional love for oneself but it is a way to work on it. It worked for Gandhi. No one seriously entertains the thought that Gandhi got to a place of no ego without help. He was the first to admit he was working on his enlightenment FIRST, then the welfare of others. In fact he said the welfare of others was his ticket to enlightenment.
No judgment. Do not flinch at suffering or fail to call it what it is. Reflect back to the patients their selves. Do not be fixed on results. Do not take credit for their changing. Unconditional acceptance of one’s own inadequacy.
I could go on but I’ve led us far enough astray. Love of the Self is another necessary angel to loving another. I get that from the poem. I cannot think to end with anything but the following.
An old Chinese Zen Master would wake up every morning, look in the mirror, and say, “Master, are you awake?
“Yes, yes!” would be his reply.
“Do not let others deceive you,” he would say.
“Yes, yes!” was his reply.
“Do no be fooled by anyone,” he said.
“No, no!” his reply.
This is self talking to Self, and vice versa. It is a Zen joke. Both selves reside in the mirror: enlightenment in delusion. Both selves reside in the person: delusion in enlightenment. The mirror and the person looking into it are not distinct from each other. We spend our days looking back and forth from delusion to enlightenment, and sometimes see both simultaneously. Accepting all that is love. Of course others help.
The words for my tangent stop here. I have said too much already. Now find the mirror.