Each to Its Own Purpose

They said, don’t use words
like epistemology in a poem,
use short, fat, beetle-browed
Anglo-Saxon words with
big butts, thick shoulders,
that clutch, hump, sweat, sleep,
that plant, grow, reap, store,
shake, fear, starve, haunt, die.
Epistemology, they said, in a poem
is like using a castrated bull
to settle your cows.
But I don’t buy that, why castrate,
let him do what he was born to do.
It seems to me there’s confusion here
between the use of a sieve and a bucket,
do you want to carry water or strain out pulp?
It’s the joy of knowing that makes
the facts shine, or the Wise Men
would never have made their long trip,
nor any of us found our way
out of the dark wood where
we were lost.