The speaker remembers a spring day from long ago, when redbirds called in hills she once knew. The memory is full of bright, particular things: redbud, buckberry, wild plum trees, and a proud river sweeping southward, brown and gold in the sun, past bluffs where poplars grow. The birdcall itself is remembered as a “honey-call,” sweet and welcoming.
By the end, memory tilts into a question: are the redbirds still singing as they did that May day on Saxton’s Hill? That wondering carries the feeling. The speaker clearly loves this landscape, but time and distance stand between her and it. The mood is warm and wistful—sunlit, vivid, and quietly sad with longing for a place now out of reach.