Schwitters in Ambleside

You would expect the vestiges of chaos
accompanied him to his alien grave,
instead this sheepish town contents itself
with making little headstones out of slate.
Cramped, stubby, but free-standing: all this gray was
some use, one way of shaping sense, relief
for eyes from lifting to hills filled with life-
lessness, the way at Honister you pass

onto the scree slopes of some outer moon
they had no image for back when he came
to colonise the idea of his death.
To settle where they couldn't gauge his worth,
to build the wall that sealed him off from fame,
to tear himself off and stick his self down.