Grasping Light Lyrics Explanation

[asmir123]

Rest of the songs aren't hard to understand but Grasping Light isn't so clear to me.
Could someone please explain what it means ?
I mean especially this part:
“But a vessel, alive,
For a time, I would thrive,
That was all,
Nothing more lay below it…
But a vessel, adrift,
Not a theft, nor a gift,
That was all –
But a pulse, but a poet”

To drink from the river is to meet with the arc
And drink until quenched
The man did
But a vessel, adrift,
Not a theft, nor a gift,
That was all –
But a pulse

Thanks.

 

[Burninator-X]

As far as I can tell:
The song is about a man (the same man from The Smoke of Many Fires) and his thoughts/reflections while he's downstream from the creature that died in the river. The poem is a poem that the man is speaking/thinking about how he's nothing but a temporary vessel for light/life/energy that will be passed on (as is any other life, such as those previous in the story. Hence the title 'Vessels'.). He drinks water from the river which is flowing with dead animal remains, thus "meeting with the arc" (the trail/chain) of the "ember" (the light/energy/life from the beginning of the story that went through the plant, then insects, then creatures, and now into the man). This also infects him because of the dead animal upstream, which leads into the ending of the story in the next song.

Hope that clears things up. Unless I'm incorrect and I just look like a dumbass for trying to explain it haha.

 

[asmir123]

Yeah I was thinking something similar, really amazing lyrics. Thanks for the answer. Cheers.