A handful of water is offered into a flowing river, yet it turns out the river itself is seething with rage. The speaker is caught up in a current of pain and shame, standing dazed and lost in thought. The poem asks whether the thirsty river's revolt is a response to the thickets of hot gases that the earth can no longer absorb, or an urge to draw the narrator into its depths. It reads as a lament over the strained bond between people and a wounded nature.