Summary

The speaker reflects on the deceased who have already passed, thinking that they watch over the living throughout their day-to-day lives. Above, the dead are drifting through a river while they regard those below through the glass bottoms of their boats. Sometimes, the living look up and the dead think the living can see them. In these moments, the dead stop rowing along the river and wait for them to go on living.

Analysis

The poem opens by quoting an oft-repeated phrase: “The dead are always looking down on us” (Line 1). This idea is one that gets recycled in stages of grief and comfort, when a mourner has trouble letting go of someone who has died. The poem introduces this idea and then expands upon it, taking it to be a literal truth that the dead can see these minutiae of everyday life. The...