Try Barking at It

You can’t live without growing.
You can’t grow without strain.
Back up. Yes, even the clearly

Elderly, near to death, dying,
Are growing, even discounting
Their tumors and infections—

The surviving agèd cells
Are still plumply subdividing,
Growth and reproduction to the grave.

And that’s a strain. You could define
Life as well as whatever strains
As by any other bell jar of meanings.

Oh meaning. That’s something different.
It needs life and all the above to happen,
But while that’s all necessary, nothing

Is sufficient within it for meaning.
That’s the true mirror test, the one
Humans fail—what is this meaning?