The Cloud Of Unknowing

And then when then I die

I feel I shall say

I have not understood

I have not understood any of this

My eyes are still coaldark

I have not understood

Around and in my eyes the tiny flecks

Of swirling crippled confused lights

And to my heart I will whisper

Softly quietly

"There is no death there is no death"

(And goodbye to you all)

Under the gorgon grinned arches

Of London's great vaults

I have not understood

Under the sunpuckered roofs

Of Kathmandu

I have not understood

Along the soulstoned streets

Of Lower

And of Higher Germanie

I have not understood

Leipzig: blackeyed pain and loss: she

I have not understood

In Clare near I

the empty lakes are open in the distance

And too close is the famineretchingroad

All these are ghosts

There I have not understood

(In the Heart of the Wood

Oh there I have understood)

I rested at the temple of Great Black Time -- Her

And did not understand

Though animalbled fleshmarbled rivers ran in Her honour

His buckled body in blood

Returns to the prebirth poise

Spreadeagled like starfish --

There in His eyes:

Incomprehension mute pain disbelief what

Blood there meant sorrow trickles there

This I could not understand

I bend the pages of yet another book

And in its lines Great Black Lines

I have not understood

Please gramercy pray for me

And oh goodbye sweetestheart

The wind roars in the nearness

And there in my heart

And all the clouds are spiralling towards us

Descent indeed to the centre of it all

Skipping lightly and lying truly

This we shall understand

I hope...

We bent humped trees

The great ones -- there

On the lapped shore

Dai Ichi

There also I do not know

This is all unknowable

And as the dust covers

My empty eyes

You shall read in these foolish gapes

Oh that I have not understood

(But if you look for the stag and cross conjoined

there on my arm look there

There I have understood very well.)

Now you are all fading

All fading

As my age creeps on

As This Age stumbles on

Fires in the earth

Fires in the sky

Fires in our hearts

Fires everywhere

The black eyes

Already blacken

And this I have not understood

Not peace

But a sword

This and He

Unfortunately

I have understood

Under the bowered greenwood tree

When first I lay

Bright starre with Thee

Under the velvet branches dear

When sun and moon both came so near

Under the starlit open dome

Under the starsharp pointed lights

Under the starloved greeny earth

When first I wanted to hold You

And all the world halfdead and halflive

Spat into my mouth

Bluesea bitterwater

And I am almost dead

And I have not understood

Under the rain and teeth of gods

Under the pain and sleeping liddy eyes

Under the brokkèd wetful heaven

If you are there

If you are there

If you are there

Then I am singing with my eyes

If you are there