The poet often sits upon the edge of reason, testing the waters of both sides with both his hyperactive poet-senses and his nightmarishly sluggish normal-senses. Treading both sides for a time, he realizes both of these seas are just as cold and just as briny, but the one just beyond reason is far deeper. With this, he dives in, drinking deep, closing his eyes beneath the surface, coughing up the salt when he bobs up for air.

The internal battle begins between the all-knowing and the not-caring, between divulging too many secrets and sharing too little of what he knows; it promises to rend him in two. This is the curse of the poet. And that of the saint. To see so much, and know so little, and yet grasp an understanding far beyond the rest of the world.

At his worst, the poet sits high up above the world and showers his insight down upon it. At his best, he sits high above the world and pulls the rest of it up to him.