Heart and Head

What is the core of our being,
the axis on which the self turns?
Where do convictions take root?
Where does understanding dwell
before it is named by thought?

Not in the province of reason,
which drafts its careful arguments.
Not in the scaffolds of logic,
which assemble ironclad frameworks
and call the structure truth.

It is the heart that says, “I am”.
Here is the inner referent “me”.
We are emotional creatures at the core
identity braided with longing,
faith entwined with pulse and breath.

We minimize emotion
because it is impressionable,
susceptible to illusion,
easily distracted by spectacle.
Unrestrained empathy can mislead;
desire can embrace a counterfeit.
Yet emotion exceeds reason in force.

Reason does not charge the field.
Reason does not lay down
its life for another.
Persuasion does not court syllogism;
it reaches instead for the vibrant string
and tunes the heart to resonance.

Still, reason has its office.
It guards principle,
disciplines impulse,
names the boundary emotion would cross.
In the garden it was not logic
that reached for the fruit.
It was desire.

Love, if it is to be authentic,
must originate in the heart.
Logic can simulate affection,
execute the gestures,
adhere to protocol and principle
yet remain untouched.

If we claim concern
but the heart is disengaged,
the act is partial,
compliance without endorsement.
The method is not the means.
It is conversion at the core,
a change of heart,
from whence the unfeigned proceeds.