On the surface, the meaning of this poem is very shallow and straight, but in fact it is very profound and obscure. Judging from the subtitle of the poem and some words in the text, it is easy for people to regard it as a love poem. It's actually a philosophical poem. The poet's confession can prove this. The poet once commented on this poem: "When a fish becomes a fossil, the fish is not the original fish, and the stone is not the original stone. This is also' life is easy'. Anyway, I'm not who I am today. We cherish the claws on the snow mud, which is a commemoration. " They seem to tell people that no matter what happened in your life and the beauty that happened, no matter how time and space change, they will still leave beautiful memories in your heart like clear paw prints on the snow and eternal fish fossils. So we can grasp the poetry of this poem from two levels: from a shallow level, this poem tells a past story through someone or a non-human creature. There are imagination and confusion about the past life, as well as nostalgia and nostalgia for the past. At a deeper level, what poets get from fish fossils is a historical and realistic philosophy, a philosophy of fishermen and self-pity. Fish fossils are inanimate, but poets treat them as spiritual creatures, talk to them, and even admire their unique "holding shape", and yearn for them: the eternal and gentle "waterline" will become eternal in the philosophical sense when "you" and "I" are far away and become history.

Ai Qing's Fish Fossil is also a philosophical poem. However, unlike Bian's poems on the same topic, which are obscure in history and semantic expression, Ai Qing gained a painful life lesson from his own experience in Fish Fossil, which has strong practical significance, and revealed the most common and basic philosophy of life through symbolic techniques, vivid images and simple and ordinary language.

The whole poem consists of seven sections, which are poetically divided into four layers. The first layer (section 1) describes the life dance of fish, and the second layer (section 2) describes the tragedy of fish's life destruction. The third layer (sections 3, 4 and 5) describes the morphology of fish fossils. The fourth layer (sections 6 and 7) describes the poet's understanding and philosophy of life from fish fossils.

A remarkable feature of Ai Qing's poems in art is that he is good at combining symbolic lyricism with philosophical thinking to express his feelings about life and life. Specific to this poem, it uses philosophical poems to guide the whole article, making the symbolic meaning more clear; At the same time, with vivid images, vivid images full of enlightenment and hints, readers' thinking space is expanded and people are guided to explore the meaning and essence of life. This not only avoids the obscurity of symbols and hints, but also avoids the boredom of reasoning, thus achieving the organic integration of simplicity and profundity, symbols and philosophy. First of all, this poem depicts a vivid image symbolizing fish fossils. It used to be a lively and energetic life, jumping and floating freely in the sea, but a sudden catastrophe-volcanic eruption or earthquake-buried it in the dust and turned it into a biological fossil. Many years later, it was discovered again At this time, although the body as a material creature is complete, it is "lifelike", "complete scales and fins" and "unable to move". There is not even a sigh, only silence, and its life has come to an end. So far, the implication and symbolism of "volcano", "earthquake" and "fish fossils" have been very clear. Didn't many people, including poets, have similar nightmare experiences during the Cultural Revolution? However, the poet did not stop at the bitter chewing on history, but revealed the objective truth that enlightens reality and shows the future in the lessons of history-"Without exercise, there is no life" and expressed the mind that "to live is to struggle,/to advance in the struggle,/to play clean even if you die". In a word, this poem is praised as "a rare masterpiece" because of its infinite strength and heroic thinking.