The Meaning Of Life

A Monologue

Think about it at will: there is that

Which is the commentary; there's that other,

Which may be called the immaculate

Conception of its essence in itself.

It is necessary to distinguish the weights

Of the two methods lest the first smother

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

I was saying this more briefly the other day

But one must be explicit as well as brief.

When I was a small boy I lived at home

For nine years in that part of old Kentucky

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 only

For honor; at twenty not to shoot at all;

I know at thirty-three that one must shoot

As often as one gets the rare chance-

In killing there is more than commentary.

One's sense of the proper decoration alters

But there's a kind of lust feeds on itself

Unspoken to, unspeaking; subterranean

As a black river full of eyeless fish

Heavy with spawn; with a passion for time

Longer than the arteries of a cave.