. . .

It is so weird how things workout in life. How one event can lead to another without any before hand intentions.

So anyway tonight I was supposed to cover a friend’s shift at work, it was only an hour shift,  I showed up and apparently someone was already there, so I didn’t argue and I left a little blown that I showed up for no reason and walked through the freaking rain.  As I was walking I ran into an old crush ahaha chatted for a little bit and proceeded to make my way to my room. As I was walking by a billboard I saw a poster for  a poetry reading , TONIGHT, in less than two minutes. So I being a spur of the moment type of person I sprinted to the school’s auditorium and I was NOT disappointed.

The Nigerian native “poet” made me feel uncomfortable with his raw lines on the woman’s body and made me feel so intrigued by his interesting choice of words.  As the readings continued he stopped and allowed a session for “question and answer” . . .

 I was so stoked!

One student asked what compelled him to drop his undergraduate interest in chemistry and math for words and rhymes and he said in 1998 I went to a Derek Walcott reading and his poem LOVE AFTER LOVE – was a calling and spoke to his soul. He interpreted the poem as a rebirth and then just like that he began to recite the poem word for word. And I had to write it down haha only thing was I had NO pen only my BLACKBERRY – I opened a draft wrote the title, lines, and the author’s name – clicked SAVE.

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

Astu Mengesha – Stay down blaze up.