A man lies in a forest stream and lets the water carry off his grief. The poem opens with the stream itself, grumbling at a rock, then relieved to flow freely again. That small drama quietly mirrors the speaker's own hope of getting past an obstacle. Once he is cradled in the sand and stones, the tone turns warm and playful: his toes poke up, his nose is "like a periscope," and he laughs gently at his own bloated body.
The mood is calm, almost dreamlike, filled with the chuckle of water and a wagtail's chirp. The speaker says it is a time for goodbyes, and he imagines little fish cleaning his heart of "pus and blood," a blunt image of healing. He even says he will no longer write poems about lost love.
The ending is more honest than triumphant. The water is clear, yet the riverbed looks blurred. He cannot yet see his future or his past clearly, but he repeats that one day he will.