Where are the waters of childhood?

http://international.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=592&x=1

We were told by our teacher to analyze this poem as a group in our class. I have come with my own interpretation of the poem but just want to confirm i with other people/get some ideas.

Firstly, I think the theme of this poem is he poet remembering a rough childhood. I believe this because of the gloomy way the author describes the house, and lines which talk about hiding from his parents. The poet has grown up now but the memories of his rough childhood still linger and dwell in his head. In this poem, he is revisting his entire childhood and remembering his parents and neighbours who are not alive anymore (When you look again, they are gone). And I believe the vanished star represent his parents who are now dead and the "dark of a star newly born" represents his adult life as an individual.

However, I am a little confused with the last staza. Does the waters of childhood represent his memories of childhood? or the true meaning of childhood which he never got to experience (happiness, joy). And also does setting the boat upon the waters represent moving on with his life and leaving his childhood behind?

I would appreciate it if someone expressed their own ideas and thoughts. Doesn't matter if you don't agree with my interpretation of the poem.

I agree with everything you say above, but I feel that it is only the superficial view of the poem. In the beginning stanza the writer talks of a beginning, yet it is him speaking of his memories. Perhaps he's hoping for them to be only a dream, hoping that his memories are fake and the happy, different ones will come crashing down upon him. I think his desperation to find something good made the last stanza as it is:

"Now you invent the boat of your flesh and set it upon the waters
and drift in the gradual swell, in the laboring salt.
Now you look down. The waters of childhood are there."

He's finding that he can make his own future happy, and that wishing for change will do nothing. The waters of his unhappy childhood may be there, but they made him who he is, and only he can make himself better from the unpleasantries.

*shrug* I tried.