The truth

Today I wanted a poem with lines that sag, a poem with lumps and bumps and jowls. I wanted a poem that says I accept full responsibility: all blame, flaws, scars. The truth. Then I wanted a poem of forgiveness for what breaks and fails and is inadequate: for mistakes that even kindness can't fix, for harm done, for all that is unfinished, partial, fading, and impermanent. Finally I wanted some hope.

This comes pretty close.

Love to Love

By Derek Walcott

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  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.