6 May 2008

happy is how I look

I have posted and removed this poem several times. I don't know the protocol for such things. I could well be annoyed if people posted my paintings without my knowledge... or would I be flattered? I don't know.

I think this poem is a gem. I first heard it on a David Whyte CD. It is by Fleur Adcock, and strikes a chord with me as I contemplate my life here.

Am I in love with a place?

Well-meaning friends suggest I could have a facelift to look younger, more beautiful. They think that then I might attract a young man into my life. I see the woman in the mirror occasionally and I know that she is younger, more beautiful... and happily independent although alone. I know I am a "passable woman", and here, in my rocky mountainside retreat, looking out over the Liri valley, (OK Zacchi, yes I am living with my four-legged friend), inexplicably happy is how I look.

Weathering

My face catches the wind
from the snow line
and flushes with a flush
that will never wholly settle.
Well, that was a metropolitan vanity,
wanting to look young forever, to pass.
I was never a pre-Raphaelite beauty
and only pretty enough to be seen
with a man who wanted to be seen
with a passable woman.

But now that I am in love
with a place that doesn't care
how I look and if I am happy,
happy is how I look and that's all.
My hair will grow grey in any case,
my nails chip and flake,
my waist thicken, and the years
work all their usual changes.

If my face is to be weather beaten as well,
it's little enough lost
for a year among the lakes and vales
where simply to look out my window
at the high pass
makes me indifferent to mirrors
and to what my soul may wear
over its new complexion.

Fleur Adock


*****


Photo of wrinkles added for Sarah... how do you take a photo of yourself without getting a double chin? Ah well, it's all vanity anyway. Here the folk who lived through the war look at your eyes, it's the younger ones who see the wrinkles and the age spots!

4 comments:

Sarah said...

Yeah, well, I'm going to give your well meaning friends the bash.
Are they *blind*?
Or just Italian?

Kay said...

They love me, it is just that some of them a trapped in the youth and beauty culture and don't see past the wrinkles even though they love me!

They don't understand that it is poossible to be independent and happily OK about wrinkles.

I like the blank page, but I also like the page that has been written on... happy with my own character lines! A blank page at my age would be odd... only canvas and paper should be clear for a new start, and even they can be marked to give more depth to a work!

It is the one cultural difference I find difficult to handle, so I tell the woman in the mirror that's she's OK!

Sarah said...

You should use this photo as your blog photo.
Get rid of the sunnies.

Sandra T said...

You are a beautiful woman - the photo is great. As for how to take a photograph without the double chin - I've got it down to a fine art! You take the photo from a higher angle, if that's what you really want. I like your attitude. Thanks for your comments on my blog, they are appreciated and helpful.