In Genevieve Taggard’s “Talking Water,” the speaker is a small pool in a hot forest, coaxing a shy deer or faun-like creature to step into its cool shallows. The water promises perfect stillness: no ripple, no shifting leaf, no shadow will startle the animal away. There is tenderness and a touch of longing in the voice, as if the pool wants to be trusted and touched. Noon feels blazing and threatening, and the pool itself is shrinking in the heat, so the invitation carries a quiet urgency. The mood is intimate, protective, and slightly dreamlike, mixing a real forest scene with a hint of myth. By the end, the pool imagines the creature floating and dozing in its water, offering calm relief from the harsh day.
Talking Water — Summary
If you will poise your forefoot in my pool, I will not loose a ripple, Beautiful. Crackle the fern-stems, arch aloft and stare, See ! there's no fright for you, anywhere. A leaf shall not lift, nor a shade shake You and your shy love away from my lake. I know the noon is ablaze for you, This gaunt forest, a maze for you : Kneel near this drop of water on stone, No one comes plunging. You are alone. To-day I am opal, tinged with blue, My color deepens with the glassy heat, And I listen for hoofs. Am I timid, too? Noon is my enemy ! Thrust in your feet ! Trample this silver, trample this sand, I will not startle you, Little One ; stand Slim as the larch, there, I'll not take Even your shade to the naked ache Of my lessening waters. If you lean, Another faun, like you, but green Will flick his ears and curve his throat, His shadow hoof will lift between These pebble-splotches. Will you float, Mingle and drowse and touch me, Beautiful ? If you come down some blown noon to my pool, I will be quiet, I will be cool.