I think the first verse is about not insomnia... if you take the black water as being a metaphor for being asleep, the poet "skims across" it "without submerging" until morning "onto the banks of an urban morning".

Maybe the next line is about how urban life is much more stressfull than country life - urban life "hungers the morning much much more than the mountains ever do"...

His wife/girlfriend who lies beside him does not have this insomnia problem however and is able to submerge into the black water (sleep) "with the ease of a dolphin" and emerge in the morning rested, "unlearned, unshamed, unharmed"

Not as clear on the rest of it but the first verse seems to fit pretty well i think...