Ray's "Be Alive" starts with a question that most of us avoid: what if we were gone? From there the speaker turns to what we leave behind. Who we become, they suggest, is a kind of shadow cast toward the future, the only trace we have there.
The middle of the poem works through a series of short, balanced statements. Feelings are what we become, memories are what we remember, and what we notice is what we think. These lines feel like the speaker testing ideas out loud, trying to pin down how experience shapes a person. Then comes the central question: is the mind made only to earn a living, or to think about who we're becoming?
The speaker doesn't give a firm answer. They say it lies "deep down" in our minds, and that even "you" sometimes fail to notice what being alive means. The mood is quiet, reflective and a little gently challenging, like a nudge to pay attention.