A willow beside a pond becomes a kind of writer. Its branch bends in the wind and its tip touches the surface, and the speaker keeps asking what it is writing, and whether the answer matters. The question returns again and again, like a ripple spreading outward, and the poem's form, with its repeated lines, makes the reader feel that circling.
Nothing in the poem answers the question. An otter breaks the water's surface, and the poem says that ripples will scatter every message before anyone can understand it. The willow's writing is real but fleeting. In the last stanza the speaker turns the question on herself, or himself: human talk, with its "endless chatter" and "words unconsidered," seems just as fleeting and careless. The mood is quiet and wondering, with a touch of humility. The speaker seems to find something beautiful in the willow's brief, unreadable writing, and perhaps a little envy too, since the willow writes without chatter.