Annie, yes.
Don, yes -- to say it so crisply, so clearly. Here is another link which contains an interview and a recording of Clive reading his "Japanese Maple" death poem—
https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2019-...rones/11744416
In a small coincidence, our copy of Clive's
Somewhere Becoming Rain: Collected Writings on Philip Larkin arrived a few days ago. Published this year, the introduction must be one of the last things he ever wrote. Here's what he writes at the end—
Apart from the very occasional poem that might be classified as deliberately obscure, every Larkin creation makes nothing but sense on the level of straighforward statement; and then, even more remarkable, it goes on being intelligible as it climbs into the realms of implication, until finally there you are, up above the estuary and heading down a cloudy channel towards where? Well, nowhere except everywhere.