In just three lines, the poem sets a father and a body of water side by side until they almost become one thing. The father's face appears "broken" on the water's surface, the way a reflection shatters when the water moves. But the word also suggests something more painful: a face that is damaged, fragmented, or hard to hold together in memory.
The repeated "face to face" gives the image a strange intimacy. Father and water meet directly, then flow together toward the valley, as if he is being carried along by the current. The last line, "water and father," puts the two words in the same rhythm, so they feel interchangeable.
The speaker never says how they feel, but the mood is quiet and mournful. Judging by the imagery, the poem may be about loss, or about how a parent's image slips away and cannot be held still. It reads like watching someone disappear gently downstream.