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This process of intellective specification is manifestly non-literal and yet, as Edwin Gerow points out,[36] the non-literal is a necessary component of poetry that strives for "coherence, unity, and accuracy":

The ultimate relevance of such oblique reference is at the heart of the poetic problem. By singling out a thing which is so obviously different the poet, by a type of Platonic definition, and by placing it against his subject, immediately cancels out in the reader's mind the entire range of literally irrelevant and incomparable aspects and connotations of each term so juxtaposed taken separately, and presents only those two things as manifesting some common aspect, the tertium, which by the force of this being abstracted and displayed alone, as it were, redounds to the descriptive credit of the original subject.

In many instances it is the reader's perception of a common aspect between the nouns in a compound which unlocks the meaning of the entire poem. The eye sees the two nouns as a single whole, a continuous happening. Thus, the principle of compounding nouns may be most accurately understood as a way of revealing motion in things, things in motion, rather than as a static formulation of spiritual concepts. Examples of this peculiar energy abound in Sri Chinmoy's work:

WISDOM IS REALISATION

For a knowledge-teacher he did not care.
He had a wisdom-tutor rare.
Knowledge is preparation, uncertain and slow.
Wisdom is realisation and perfection-glow.[37]