The speaker is out in the cold air of October, stoned, and the world around him starts to feel strangely alive with death. A skull speaks in "worm words," its missing teeth hiss, and the whole scene seems to come from inside an owl. The images are eerie, but the speaker's reaction is oddly relaxed. He finds it merely "odd" that a skull haunts a body from within, as though noticing for the first time that we all carry one.
The most hopeful moment comes with the frost forming on grass blades. Of all the ideas about a next life, this is the only one that makes sense to him: a quiet, physical change in nature, not a spirit or a heaven. His own body joins in with a gurgling gut. In the last line he looks at fear "from a great height," detached and calm. The mood is spooky but dreamy, mixing decay, humor, and a strange peace.