Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Gail Mazur’s “Waterlilies” is a lush, evocative exploration of memory, desire, and the awakening of the body to its own mysteries and contradictions. By weaving together the innocence of childhood with the dawning awareness of physical and emotional longing, Mazur crafts a narrative that is both tenderly nostalgic and achingly bittersweet. The poem’s imagery, suffused with natural beauty, underscores the fleeting, transformative nature of the moments it describes.

The poem begins in the shadowy, electric atmosphere of a basement party, where “the lights were out” and the boundaries of childhood and adolescence blur in the "dazzling darkness." The setting is one of awkward intimacy, as six boys and six girls attempt to navigate the charged terrain of their own desires. The music is “to dance close to,” and this proximity—physical, emotional, and symbolic—sets the stage for the unfolding of a deeply personal moment. Mazur captures the blend of anticipation and uncertainty inherent in such rites of passage, where innocence and experience collide in the dim light of discovery.

The speaker’s recollection of this evening is tinged with questions—what were the children’s names, what was the music?—emphasizing the ephemeral quality of memory. These questions lend a dreamlike quality to the scene, as if the speaker is piecing together fragments of a distant past, attempting to retrieve the details that have slipped away with time. Yet the emotional resonance remains intact, suggesting that while specifics may fade, the essence of such pivotal moments endures.

The waterlilies, introduced early in the poem, become a central metaphor for the delicate balance between innocence and sensuality. Their “large green shield-like lily pads” float serenely on the river, while their “showy fragrant blooms” close for the night. The imagery evokes a sense of containment and secrecy, mirroring the children’s own tentative exploration of their emerging identities. The roots of the lilies, “in the mud at the bottom,” suggest a deeper, unseen foundation—a metaphor for the tangled, often invisible origins of desire and emotion.

The focus shifts to a particular girl, who experiences the evening with a heightened sense of awareness and longing. Her crush on a boy—sparked by the brief, deliberate touch of his hand when picking up their spelling tests—creates a narrative of personal awakening. The boy’s inability to spell words like “balloon” or “cinnamon” contrasts with his “body’s genius,” emphasizing the divide between intellectual aptitude and physical presence. This duality mirrors the girl’s own awakening: her body, described as “poor pleasured thing,” comes alive in a way that her mind does not yet fully understand.

The next day, the girl and the boy take a rowboat onto the Charles River, navigating a “jungle of waterlilies impossible to pick.” The lilies’ “long rubbery stems” remain “invisible, never-ending,” symbolizing the elusiveness of fulfillment and the complexity of desire. The oars, “heavy wooden oars,” underscore the physical effort required to move through this landscape, mirroring the emotional labor of navigating early relationships. The natural imagery—“weeping willow, wild garlic”—heightens the sensory richness of the scene, grounding the abstract themes of longing and transformation in a tangible, tactile world.

The poem crescendos with a recognition of the fleeting nature of the experience. The day on the river is “one day only,” an isolated moment in the vast expanse of time. The “inaugural night’s swaying” gives way to “the sun’s insinuations” and the “carnal tugging at fathomless blossoms.” This language, both tender and sensuous, captures the collision of innocence and experience, as the girl grapples with the intensity of her emotions and the weight of her awakening.

The boy, with his “yellow hair” and “the beautiful impassive face of a Greek god,” becomes an idealized figure, both alluring and unattainable. His perfection, drawn from the “Book of Knowledge,” underscores the distance between the girl’s lived reality and her romanticized perception. This duality is encapsulated in the poem’s closing lines: “after that, she wanted only to be alone, she wanted only not to be alone.” This paradox captures the essence of adolescence, where the yearning for connection is inseparable from the fear of vulnerability.

Mazur’s “Waterlilies” is a masterful exploration of a singular moment that encapsulates universal themes of growth, desire, and loss. Through vivid imagery and lyrical introspection, the poem invites readers to reflect on their own experiences of awakening, where the boundaries between self and other, past and present, innocence and experience dissolve into the shimmering, timeless waters of memory.

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