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 for ever, 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 turn 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.
