For a Philosopher
Here lies one who tried to solve The riddle of being and breath: The wee blind mole that gnaws his bones Tells him the answer is death.
Countee Cullen
Here lies one who tried to solve The riddle of being and breath: The wee blind mole that gnaws his bones Tells him the answer is death.
Countee Cullen packs a whole life’s search into four lines. The epitaph announces a philosopher who tried to solve “the riddle of being and breath”—why we exist, what it means to be alive. The answer he gets is not from thought or revelation but from a blind mole gnawing his bones underground.
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