The Meaning Of Life

A

Think about it at will: there is

Which is the commentary; there's that other,

Which may be called the

Conception of its essence in itself.

It is necessary to distinguish the

Of the two methods lest the first

The second, the second be speechless (without the first).

I was saying this more briefly the other

But one must be explicit as well as brief.

When I was a small boy I lived at

For nine years in that part of old

Where the mountains fringe the Blue Grass,

The old men shot at one another for luck;

It made me think I was like none of them.

At twelve I was determined to shoot

For honor; at twenty not to shoot at all;

I know at thirty-three that one must

As often as one gets the rare chance-In killing there is more than commentary.

One's sense of the proper decoration

But there's a kind of lust feeds on

Unspoken to, unspeaking;

As a black river full of eyeless

Heavy with spawn; with a passion for

Longer than the arteries of a cave.