‘Ramshackle loveliness’ was the phrase I wrote,

then cancelled and kept free for use elsewhere:

       the whole feel of the place – as much

              the countryside as his house –

is in that sense of unachieved perfection

and slight neglect that makes for beauty. It might be

        the receding lip of a stone step

               foot-worn to a wave,

or a tie-beam, the curved thew of a bough

black with pitch, or the way each block of stone

         (crudely dressed, set on the soil

               it was dug from time out of mind)

fits so closely yet roughly against stone.

I come outside and imagine him living there,

       as the wind heaves and the loaded tree

               lurches, towards the wall,

its freight of apples. In there, he draws or writes

and apple and grey stone are in his work

        as leaves and feathers are, which seem

               (ruffled in draught, the dust

blown from their pores) fresh from creation. What

is this I feel but love for the man he was

        or must have been? The river willows

               tense hard against the wind