In “Evening Waterfall,” someone is haunted by a leave-taking. Twice the speaker asks the same two questions: What was the name you called me? And why did you go so soon? We never learn who is gone or what name was spoken, which makes the loss feel intimate and unfinished. The evening landscape mirrors that feeling. Crows’ calls ride a wind that turns lonely; warblers pour their sleepy-songs across the valley at twilight, near the first stars. Those small sounds become an “evening waterfall,” as if the whole dimming world is shedding something. The image of “feathers and people” blends human absence with the birds, making the memory feel inseparable from the dusk. The mood is hushed, sorrowful, and a little disoriented, like standing alone at dusk after someone has left. The repeated questions suggest the speaker is caught in a loop of memory, still trying to understand a departure that came too soon.
Evening Waterfall — Summary
What was the name you called me? — And why did you go so soon? The crows lift their caw on the wind, And the wind changed and was lonely. The warblers cry their sleepy-songs Across the valley gloaming, Across the cattle-horns of early stars. Feathers and people in the crotch of a treetop Throw an evening waterfall of sleepy-songs. What was the name you called me? — And why did you go so soon?