Today’s Delicious Poem About You

Discovering Hidden Treasure

The following gem of a poem by author Derek Walcott literally fell out of a folder that I was going through in a mission to declutter my filing cabinet. I couldn’t help but smile as I read it, recalling how earlier on that same day, I had placed a tiny replica of a treasure chest next to the chair in which I begin my sessions with clients as a somatic psychotherapist.

I wondered whether anyone would notice it. My first client asked, “Is that a treasure chest. Can I put something inside?” The next client asked, “Is that a pirate chest? May I hold it?” Each client saw something different but delightful in that tiny little object.

Somehow the act of finding this gem of a poem hidden in my files, and to my clients being drawn to the unexpected appearance of the gold colored chest made me think of discovering hidden treasure.

And, back to the poem…

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.

While I am well aware of how much of a struggle it is for people to look in a mirror and see anything but blemishes both inside and out, I wonder what it would be like to look in the mirror with the intention of searching for and finding a hidden treasure about yourself. Is it possible that alongside a wrinkle that tells a story about anxiety or grief could be a feeling or memory that speaks of pleasure and possibility?

Now is as good a time as any to try this, so here I go. Care to join me? Who knows what we both may discover if we consciously look for the hidden sparkle of something not so obvious.

Warmly,

Nicole

Passion. Peace. Purpose.