Quandary

Ever have I been glad and sad

That there was such a thing as life.

Categories, I understand,

In ontological demand,

Fill teleological strife.

Time and space, categorically construed,

Testify to lewd pairs of sorts,

Excluding some with a torch, a knife.

To use our brains, as theory suggests,

Is to keep in check our exclusiveness,

Thus our discriminates and our ends.

Use not others ‘merely as means,

But ends in themselves’ the philosopher suggests,

Not taking into account spiritual amends.

Brains and the Cross, quandary of categorical sense,

Though not for postmodern recompense,

Or for foundationalist sacred claims.

From this formula of inclusiveness, I detest,

Is more exclusiveness like the rest,

Clandestine in the wilderness.

Sacred and profane, that is the game

Of the split self, rocking on faith

Swaying with reason for fruit from a wraith.

This is the way I once did think,

On the brink of thinking what it means to think.

As thoughtful I was, I must admit

My guilt as a discriminate,

For lack of redaction on my part –

A consequence of an exclusive heart.