Monday Poem

A Question of Necessity

Can you tell me a certain thing
that is a moral fact?
is a
specious question because
the fact of the thing
exists as something essential
to the survival of homo sapiens
in creating civilization, though civilization
does not always believe in the necessity
of its essential thing: the root
of what it means to be civilized—
and the fact
of chaos, or natural inclination,
becomes the default mode
simply because morality,
being thought subjective,
and hard taskmaster, cannot be
sufficiently defined, and we all become
hawks or vultures feeding on carrion doves

It’s a question, whose answer itself is not an easy act
but is nevertheless, even if undefined, called love,
which is foremost not a thing we feel, but do:
a moral act made fact

Jim Culleny
9/13/20