The speaker describes how the dead are “looking down through the glass-bottom boats of heaven” (Line 3). The glass bottoms create a literal window through which the dead can watch the living — a common belief among mourners. However, the poet combines different world beliefs to create this image. The boats are a literary allusion to the ferries that would carry the dead across the river Styx in Greek mythology. Unlike the dead in that mythological canon, however, these dead are implied to be in charge of their own progression and fate. When they’re concerned the living are watching them back, the dead are able to “lift their oars … and wait” (Line 9-10). In this way the boats become a symbol of both movement and stasis, and the uneven forward momentum of grief.