The original meaning (and still the formal meaning) of 'queer' is actually 'strange' or 'weird'. The excerpt is probably from a few decades ago or was written/spoken within a formal context. The new, more common meaning of 'queer' was born from old beliefs of a prejudiced society, where homossexual people were considered to be 'weird', therefore it's a pejorative term, and it's generally not received well by the homessexual community. As the word 'gay', which originally means 'glad', but with time had its meaning changed first colloquially, then gramatically ('glad' does not imply a pejorative connotation, however).
So the meaning of the stanza wouldn't change it the words mentioned were used intead.
1. I can see the water's motion by watching how a swell the river became because of the water.
2. When the tide comes in on the beach, it could submerge the whole island by how large the high tide is.
3. There was a porthole in our room on the boat, so we covered it with a plank of wood.
4. One reason to be on the deck of a boat is that it forms the main outside of the boat.
<span>The following of these sentences continue, in order for the readers to understand what the word truly means.</span>
EXPLANATION:
Your shadow is sunlight on a plate of silver;
Your footsteps, the seeding-place of lilies;
Your hands moving, a chime of bells across a windless air.
The movement of your hands is the long, golden running of light from a rising sun;
What is the hopping of birds upon a garden path
