Tuesday, April 14, 2009

love after love

"to love one must first forget all about love. make it your aim and look for direction. as we are we cannot possibly love." gurdjieff

narcissus stopped at the surface. he couldn't bring himself to break the skin of the pool of his knowing.



for a little while.

and yet there is a point at which you must break beneath the skin of that pool of knowing and immerse yourself in self-remembering:
as a door opens and a foot steps outside that door.
as dust rises from beneath the first purposeful stamp of that foot on the journey away from self love.

so there is:

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.
derek walcott

in peeling "your own image from the mirror" you experience the reality of another gurdjieff aphorism: "sincerity is the key to self-knowledge and to be sincere with oneself brings great suffering."
or as j.g. bennett said: "it is impossible to achieve the aim without suffering."