Lauris Dorothy Edmond navigates the scapes of love, passion, memory and nostalgia in her poem

Waterfall as it takes us through the poets mind, as she was experiencing grief at the loss of her
partner, through the 24 lines of the short poem. The poem uses various images of nature to
represent their relationship through metaphors. It is written in first person and explores the
personal experiences of the voice in the poem. The verse is simple and emotive as it charts the poets
emotions, regrets and wishes while also being vivid in its depictions of the many imageries and
metaphors that form the heart of the poem. It does not follow a rhyme scheme and is divided into
four stanzas of six lines each. While the first three stanzas explores her complicated thoughts on the
death of her partner as we shift through different stages of their relationships, the last stanza
provides her emotional response to the incident.

Waterfall: Summary and Analysis

Stanza 1

I do not ask for youth, nor for delay

in the rising of time’s irreversible river

that takes the jewelled arc of the waterfall

in which I glimpse, minute by glinting minute,

all that I have and all I am always losing

as sunlight lights each drop fast, fast falling.

The poem begins as the poet unravels her emotions and desires to the readers. Time here takes
form of a river, irreversible, as it flows its due course; and in that immenseness everything she is and
loves forms around a waterfall, each one glimmers in the sun as it falls down into the pool beneath
to die. Stanza begins says she does not wish for youth, which is to say for the time to flow
backwards, or for time to slow down for her so that she can spend more time admiring her beloved
droplets for just a bit longer before they all fall down into inevitable oblivion waiting at the end of
the fall. Her fall is made worse as all she can do is helplessly stand by and watch everything slip away
from her. The use of the metaphor of waterfall for life also adds the added layer of ephemerality to
existence, where unlike a river where each droplet of water transverses many miles to finally lose
themselves in the ocean the water inhabiting a waterfall quickly ceases to be,23 joining the river
beneath it. Life here over in the blink of an eye. The stanza also serves stanza represents the aspect
of youth in their relationship, brimming with energy that slowly fades away with time, all the while
seeing the same happen to all that is around you and everything you love. The poet explains that,
she does not ask for youth or more time to enjoy all that she has at this juncture of time, making
readers ponder what she desires for in the poem.
Stanza 2

I do not dream that you, young again,

might come to me darkly in love’s green darkness

where the dust of the bracken spices the air

moss, crushed, gives out an astringent sweetness

and water holds our reflections

motionless, as if for ever.

She declares that she does not want her lover, young , in the dark wilderness of passion spending
time with her. The stanza engages is nature imagery to convey moments of passion. She thinks of
her partner coming to meet her in “ love’s green darkness” with bracken spores in the air, here
nature becomes the stage to their intimacy as they spend time together. The fourth line gives an
image of people laying on a blanket of moss thereby crushing it filling the air with the grassy
essence. The stanza also associates love with darkness as if to say love is something to be lost in or
that love casts shade over ones mind igniting the myriad emotions beneath the surface of our minds.
Love is also associated with green and nature in this stanza branding it as natural, revealing to the
reader that her feeling for her partner was genuine. The last two lines engages in a different water
imagery from before, contrasting with the river and waterfall of the first stanza the water here is
still, it is a fantasy of permanence that she know they cant have, she nevertheless imagines their
moments to last for ever. This stanza could with the first plants questions of the poets true wish that
is not revealed to the readers yet. This stanza explores the aspect of romance and sexuality in
relationship. The poet vividly describes beautiful nature and an enjoyable time with ones partner she
goes forth adding the time waiting for the lovers to have their time before it finally flows again; but
this too is something the poet discards, for now she wishes for something else.

Stanza 3

It is enough now to come into a room

and find the kindness we have for each other

-- calling it love -- in eyes that are shrewd

but trustful still, face chastened by years

of careful judgement; to sit in the afternoons

in mild conversation, without nostalgia.

The third stanza finally reveal the poets true wishes, that she would chose over youth, love and
passion. She finally reveals, that after all that has come to pass she would prefer companionship and
the partners familiar aura that, she cannot have any longer as the stanza explores the aspect of
companionship in relationship and what it means to the poet. Who, through this stanza explains
how youth, passion, and enjoyment is all for naught if one cant have a stable companion to fall back
on. She reveals that she would rather walk into a room to find a kind presence that returned that
care she had for them, someone who soothes and comforts all that made that feeling they used to
call love. And to find in her partners shrewd yet trustful eyes and in that face hardened by the years
a tenderness that she could have and sit together in the afternoons to talk, without any care to all
that has passed and to live in that moment.

Stanza 4

But when you leave me, with your jauntiness

sinewed by resolution more than strength

-- suddenly then I love you with a quick

intensity, remembering that water,

however luminous and grand, falls fast

and only once to the dark pool below.

The poet has reserved the saddest lines in the poem for the last stanza where the poet finally
explains her feelings of loss. She says how her feelings for her loved one swells as her lover leaves
her seemingly happy, but she knows that his attitude is fuelled by his resolution to appear so hat
actual vigour, knowing that the waterfall of existence reserves a short and hasty one way trip for
everyone no matter how grand the person in question may be. Here life is described as luminous just
as it was in the first stanza when it is likened to the water in a waterfall and death is the dark pool
below where the water from the fall is destined to end up in the end. These lines depict how people
do not recognize the depth of their feelings for another unless confronted by loss, or at least the
thought of the same. This lead us to not value the relationships we have while it lasts and thus leave
us condemned to regret the loss of the loved ones after they are no more.