Vox Populi
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Fleur Adcock: Weathering
Literally thin-skinned, I suppose, my face
catches the wind off 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,
nor anything but pretty enough to satisfy
men who need to be seen with passable women.
But now that I am in love with a place
which doesn’t care how I look, or if I’m 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
that’s little enough lost, a fair bargain
for a year among the lakes and fells, when simply
to look out of my window at the high pass
makes me indifferent to mirrors and to what
my soul may wear over its new complexion.
~~~~
Fleur Adcock (10 February 1934 – 10 October 2024) was a New Zealand poet and editor who lived much of her life in England. She received an OBE in 1996, and the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2006 for Poems 1960-2000 (2000). In 2019, Adcock was presented with the New Zealand Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Poetry
Copyright 2024 Fleur Adcock. From Fleur Adcock: Collected Poems – Bloodaxe Books – 2024.
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A brave, lovely poem. RIP Fleur ❤️
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So succinct, so beautiful, so “right on”. Thank you for introducing me to this marvelous poet.
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I like the frankness of this poem.
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Such a perfect command of tension, irony and tenderness…
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I want to write this kind of poem.
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Yes. Yes. Yes.
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Yes.
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So many poets I learn about when they die. I long to say thank you, thank you and let’s talk over coffee or tea.
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Fleur Adcock died last month, much honored in both the UK and her native New Zealand. I never met Fleur, but I think I would have liked her.
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Love Fleur’s work. Her recent Collected is great. Such a loss x
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Yes, I love her poems as well. I’m afraid she’s virtually unknown in the US. Pity.
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Not going to “mansplain” what this poem evokes, except to other guys: my hair not gray, but somehow gone. Three teeth pulled. Maybe not indifferent to mirrors, but avoiding them out of spite. But still in love with the view out my windows, with the passing world I join when I can. I dance to slower steps, strutting less, inspired by the weathered.
And I give thanks to the late Fleur Adcock, who reminds me to stroll out of despondency, when it sidles up.
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Yes, I find this poem very inspiring. A detached view of what it means to grow old. I have some health problems, but the blessings in my life far outweigh the age-related challenges.
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