Child, How you keep falling into rivers.
At the bottom there's a rose And in the rose there's another river.
Look at that bird. Look That yellow bird.
My eyes have fallen down Into the water.
My God, How they're slipping! Youngster!
—— And I'm in the rose myself.
When I was lost in water I Understood but won't tell you.
Jack Spicer takes the old myth of Narcissus, the youth who falls in love with his own reflection, and turns it into a strange, dreamlike scene. The speaker seems to be an older voice talking to a "child" or "youngster" who keeps tumbling into rivers, and the tone shifts quickly from gentle scolding to alarm. When the speaker cries "My God, / How they're slipping!" about his own eyes, the warning has become personal. He is no longer watching the danger from the bank; he is sinking too.
The images keep folding into one another: a river at the bottom of a rose, a rose holding another river. It feels like looking into a mirror that contains a mirror. The yellow bird interrupts the spell, as if the speaker is trying to pull the child's gaze away from the water.
The ending is the most unsettling part. The speaker says he understood something while lost in the water but "won't tell you." The mood is hypnotic, tender, and a little eerie, with the sense that some knowledge can only be gained by falling in.