The speaker begins with a worry: do emotional wounds ever heal, or are they just sealed shut? The answer comes quickly. Any seal can break, and love, the poem says, behaves like a lake. You can throw as many stones into it as you want and never find a "final strike," a last blow that finishes it off.
Then comes a question. Should a heart be hard and sturdy, like a concrete foundation, or should it be like the lake, which doesn't seem to care what you do to it? The poem leans toward the lake. Each impact fades into the water, and everything stays within its borders.
The mood is calm but a little wistful. The speaker sounds like someone who has been hurt and is working out how to carry that pain, not by hardening up but by absorbing it. The title, "The Bleeding Lake," hints that the water still carries the marks, even if the surface looks smooth. The language is simple and slightly uneven, which gives it a quiet, personal feel.