It's In the Contract

What is all this change that's heading towards death?
Is it so bad? The changing asks this: is it so bad?
God save me if I'm profound! Yes, because I am ludicrous:
Such a proud man, peering into matters under the earth
And above the stars, seeking out the causes of things
Though ignorant of himself and everyone around him

Or rather too mindful! Too eager to seem deep
(That's the poet's streak for you, writing
What he hopes the po' folk will mutter someday,
Sitting on the porch outside the general store
And squinting and reciting while the flies buzz:
"That shore wuss deep. Leiberwhitz shore writes nice."
And meanwhile the horse tied up against the post shits.

Let me venture a guess as to what all of this is about:
I can't write, I can't think or act without supposing
Some continuation, a kind of eternity in which the action
Finds and fills its end. Life aims to perpetuate itself.
But how can anything have meaning if everything
Must end? Is there a strength in living that disperses
Through life's several projects and gets lost in them,
A vigorous rejoicing in health? When it is wretched
It is worse than wretched, and I don't mean to say
That ugliness is heads to beauty's tails, but the capacity
To exult is the capacity to suffer, wisdom is the fruit
Of fools, and perishing, perishing is part of the package.