GPT
The poem speaks from separation toward reunion, using sea, river, storm, and prayer to imagine a love that can survive distance without being reduced or shamed.
A landlocked man of the sea is already a divided figure, and that tension drives the whole piece. Children, women, rivers, and winds broaden the address beyond one private relationship, but the aim remains intimate: to meet rightly, eye to eye, through heavy weather rather than wishful softness. The closing prayer resists analysis that would turn love into disgrace, and asks instead for a burial that keeps being abstract and undiminished.
Claude
In "A Poet's Problem" a 'man of the sea' watches 'landlocked children swim / By him', apologizes 'Sorry to have let you stay on the sand', blames 'what the rivers too have done', and hopes 'Water will calm us in eye to eye peace'; he says his 'children are many as the beads in lace' and prays 'love will never be disected as disgrace / When I only ment that my being be buried abstract'.
The poet's problem is distance: a sea-born man stranded inland, separated from children and women he addresses with guilt softened into humor. Water imagery shifts from separation to reconciliation, with the 'heavy storm' rather than light wishes named as the way to find each other. The closing plea asks that his love not be analyzed into shame, and the source spellings 'disected' and 'ment' keep the confession raw and unguarded.