Three short scenes show what a hard winter leaves behind once the snow starts to go. In the first, the melting snow uncovers the burrows and bodies of small rodents, which the poem calls "catacombs," as if the ground were a burial place. The flat remark that follows, "It's been a long winter," sounds tired and understated, like someone who has stopped being shocked.
The second scene shows hungry deer stripping rhododendrons, and the odd phrase "cold-curled tongues" makes the leaves feel almost like living things being eaten. The last scene is the quietest and perhaps the saddest: huge old hemlocks are losing their needles to an insect "thinner than a thread," a tiny enemy bringing down something a hundred years old.
The speaker never says how they feel, but the mood is bleak and watchful. The title, "Evergreens," is ironic, since nothing here stays green. The poem seems to suggest that even the things that look most lasting can be worn down.