Ordinary things pile up in this poem: grass on the pampa, oil in a crankcase, a purring cat. The capitalized words scattered through the lines make them feel like signs or headlines, as if the speaker is picking out single words from a noisy stream of language. Even the cat seems to trust that time will go on forever, and the speaker half shares that comfort.
What the speaker feels is a mix of closeness and distance. He has "access to the personal," yet far away lie faces, armies of words, and dim fact and fancy. Memory is unreliable, though it can still surface as a small "drop of longing" on the tongue. The ending is quietly hopeful. From his own living center, he can speak without dying, which suggests that language and being alive are tied together. The mood is thoughtful and a little playful, jumpy on the surface but steady underneath.