Shell Time

The glory of the seashore – a new page with every tide.

What Page Are You On?

It’s 4pm on Sunday afternoon, August 16th,  here in Ireland and I’ve just been reclining after a lovely walk around Tramore Beach.

I always have a pile of books to hand and my choice today for a relaxing read was this particular favourite:

While reading is a solitary activity, my mind often wanders to what books other people are reading as I’m reading mine. So this is the question I put to you, dear friends.

How fortunate we are to be able to read ~ in terms of both being literate and having the necessary eyesight!

The particular page I’ve been reading is 325 and this  gem:

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)