Love After Love: A Poetic Exploration (Part 2 of 5)

Issue #14

Thanks for joining us for the second part of our five part reflection on Derek Walcott’s poem, “Love After Love.” We suggest reviewing the brief poem prior to each week’s discussion. Please see our first part of the series for the poem. We encourage you to take your time with each instalment. There is a lot to think and feel through. 

One: Love After Love

The title. “Love After Love,” immediately evokes curiosity. Is it the story of finding love after another love has ended? Is it a post-relationship poem that ends like a Hollywood romance? After reading the poem, of course, one finds that it has little to do with that. In many ways, if we practiced a deeper love of self before loving others, perhaps we would have made better life choices. One could envision a poem, “Love Before Love” which would encourage one to truly “find oneself” before making thorny and life altering decisions. However, that does not tend to be the way things work. We think we know ourselves and yet pursue relationships, careers, commitments that take us further away from the person we really are. One day, we may find ourselves, as Dante, in the middle of life’s journey in a dark wood where the way was wholly lost.

Reflection: What was your first association to the title when you read it? What assumptions did you make? When you read the poem for the first time, what feeling came up within you? If you have known this poem for a while, what is it that draws you back to it?

Two: The time will come

That one line, “the time will come,” sits by itself at the top of the poem. Immediately, one wants to see what is next, but wait. Pause. The poet knows the value of time. “The time will come” suggests that whatever follows did not happen suddenly, but came about slowly. The surety of the word “will” gives confidence to the reader, almost as if to say, “Don’t worry. This will transpire.” As we will learn, this is very affirming in the midst of a painful and likely extended mourning period. The poet is not going to give the reader some cheap “be happy” encouragement. One could imagine that the individual has been slogging through many days, months, or even years that go from “okay” to miserable and maybe back to “okay.” Honoring that difficult time is absolutely critical. But the poet reminds us that “the time will come.” We may or may not believe him. There are days when we just do not feel like everything is going to work out and we say to the poet, “No. You don’t understand. This pain will never lift.”

However, there often does come a time in the mourning process when our mind, soul, and heart are ready and finally able to move onward. Grief is about longing in so many ways, and also about letting go, in the end, of the raw pain. It is not about letting go of all pain, though. People want to know, “When will this stop hurting so much?” The answer is never known, but one day it will happen that it just does not hurt as badly as it does now.

When we miss someone so much, the process of “letting go” is hard, especially if we have invested so much in them. The same is true for a job or a cause that dominated our lives and clothed us with an identity. Who am I without that person in my life? Who am I without that job in my life? Who am I if I am no longer connected with the identity that I created and that, in turn, created me? Who am I as I age and am not that person with boundless energy? Even if intellectually we know we will move on and that somehow we will be okay, feelings lag behind the experience. As is often said, “The struggle is real.” Sometimes when all we have is the pain as a point of connection, letting go of that is very hard. It is as if we cling to the pain as at least a reminder of what we know we have lost. As we give up the pain, we are moving forward in our life.

“The time will come” when we take that deep breath and let the past go a little bit further, a little bit further, and a little bit further. Some go deep down the rabbit hole and will take longer to emerge than others. For others this will be a quicker process. The key issue here is simply owning and honoring what you feel and allowing the grief to work its way through. This is not a competitive event to “get on with things.” Some who just move on have not truly processed their losses.

It is often valuable to know and name everything that is emerging in your grief work. What does it feel like? Of what does it remind you? Is there a past grief that is being triggered by this one? Are you mourning at multiple levels all at the same time? This is what happens when we experience a loss in the present that reminds us of an old loss that, in turn, may remind us of what feels like a huge existential loss. It is important to acknowledge the whole picture if that is relevant to you. By the time most of us reach maturity, we have experienced so many losses that the ground is fertile with associations. Sometimes, even old losses that we thought were settled can reappear. This is normal. We may find ourselves thinking, “Oh no. Not that stuff again. I thought I had resolved that.” All the good work you have done in the past will certainly help you at this time, so try not to despair too much. There are times when we find new contours to old losses. Explore them. They will help you understand this most recent of losses. It will all help you make greater sense of your life as a totality.

Reflection: Think of a time when you were in a state of deep sadness or despair. We can all have ups and downs, but think of a time when you were perhaps in a prolonged state of feeling quite lost. Maybe you felt abandoned, left behind, kicked to the curb. What was (or is) that loneliness like for you? Who, if anyone, was there for you? Were you even able to be there for yourself? How did you emerge from that state to a place where the pain or the hurt was less? Think about what you did and what was helpful to you. Some of that may (or may not) be helpful at this time. Sometimes reminding ourselves that we have survived some pretty rough times can give us hope.

Three: Elation

“Elation” is such an interesting word here. We tend to think of someone feeling just okay at best after the ending of a relationship. How can we even imagine what elation looks like or feels like, especially after a difficult time? To just be able to move can feel like the greatest achievement. Elation? That sounds like a wish fantasy when one is in the depths of despair. For some of us, it is a wish fantasy on the best of days. In our “be positive” culture, people going through true pain and suffering can easily feel “less than” and feel like a burden to others. (This is not to say that there are not some people who make a big to do about every little thing and live a life full of needless drama and angst. Let’s set the drama folks aside for now.) Here, in this essay, we are talking about people suffering from hard things.

So, what does elation mean? The word has shifted in meaning from the 14^th century to the present. In the 14^th century it suggested having an inordinate degree of self-esteem and was tied to “vainglory.” The beautiful link for this poem, though, may come through the Latin meaning that indicates a “lifting up” or a “lifting of spirits.” This seems more congruent with how the poet may have been using the word. When one has felt downtrodden for a long time and then becomes manic, one would be reluctant to say this is a good sign. Manic joy is an overdone compensation. When someone is overly positive or exuberant, we are usually correct to wonder if they are just trying to convince themselves and/or others that everything will be fine, even when there is no real indication that this is the case.

Instead, when one has gone through a long and rough time and the heaviness seems to be lifting, like a fog dispersing, we are more in the zone of reality. It is like any grief. We may not have resolved anything. We may still sting from the loss, Feelings may rise and fall, but there is a leveling of sorts. We find that we are no long as much held in the grip of “the beloved” – whether that “beloved” be a person, a job, a sense of purpose. It is as though one has been ill for a long time and one day starts to feel something other than sick, perhaps even a sense of something approximating strength.

The feeling is reminiscent of the song, “I Can See Clearly Now” by Johnny Nash and covered by so many great artists. The heaviness has lifted and we can actually see that blue sky where we only used to see grey. Perhaps this is the kind of elevation Walcott is suggesting. In fairness to all of us who have been through times of despair, there is no switch to make everything wonderful. It is an emergence that comes from rough days with some possible openings where the pain is just less. During difficult times when the pain is acute, the very fact that we can experience a good day or part of one feels a bit shocking. We move from a state of deadness to realizing that, in fact, the patient is not dead yet. Knocked down? Yes. Feeling defeated? Yes. Worried about the future? Yes. But now feeling a bit of energy? Yes. This may be a long way from elation, but you may be on a path of possibility and even hope could exist.

Reflection: What, if anything at this time in your life, lifts your spirits? When do you get a reprieve from the burden that is on your shoulders? Is it being in nature? Listening to the birds? Playing with a pet? Taking a bath or doing yoga? Taking 15 minutes to read something that matters to you? Doing a small act of kindness for another? Developing the discipline to do a few things each day to lift your spirit can help as you as you struggle through hard times and as you begin to see the turn in the cave from which light seems to be emerging. Remember, this is truly a process. Some days you will not have the energy to do what you know could give you a brief respite in your day. Being hard on ourselves, we all know, only makes it worse. Give yourself the same grace you would give a dear friend.

Keep exploring the many rich contours of your life.

Jim and Linda

* Ka-tet - A group of people bound together by ka (destiny) for a sense of purpose. Credit: Stephen King from his novel, The Gunslinger.

TEO Ka-tet is the property of James Burke and Linda Pierce operating as TEOconsulting, LLC

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Jim@teoconsulting.org

Linda@teoconsulting.org