It isn't nothing to know even one moment alive— by which the poet who wrote those lines meant there's some cost, barter, or exchange. What she means is, to feel so keenly is a blade that can cut both ways: misery or euphoria, invincible or exposed. I think of that story about a daily offering of fruit tossed into a king's treasury room, until the accidental discovery of their jeweled hearts— How could no one have smelled or seen ripeness and its head- long rush toward decay? The dizzying scent of ammonia, the slipped and speckled skins; a multitude of ants and flies eating what others discarded. Unbearable desire; rot or ferment: all that requires surrender until nothing remains but beautiful bone.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.