A Clarification

Your ass cashes
your emotional checks
in your acts,
your conceptual checks
in your facts.

Either way, your ass
is on the line.

What poetry keeps implict
philosophy makes explicit.

What to unfold?
Wisdom warns us.

Who to enfold?
Love urges us.

Not, "what it is like to be,"
but how     it     becomes
                                       you.

              We begin
                      in imagination
                            to understand
                             and believe
              and know things
      and err
   and doubt
      and wonder
              and begin again
                      in imagination

There is no perspicuity
to be found in our emotions.
They live in darkness.

But we can make them precise.
We can give them their due
                                                   intensity.

Do not try to make your feelings clear.
Keep them tight.