Three short scenes make up this poem, each one a quiet observation from the natural world. First, the speaker looks at young jewelweed seedlings, whose paired, dimpled leaves look like conjoined twins. Then comes a sound from the valley: horses pulling a buggy, their "eight steel shoes" a precise, almost playful detail that makes the clatter easy to picture. Finally, the speaker notices a crooked sassafras tree where something has found "a blood-colored door" beneath the bark.
The speaker doesn't tell us how to feel, but the attention itself suggests curiosity and a kind of delighted awe. Ordinary things become strange: seedlings turn into twins, a tree turns into a house. The last image is the most unsettling, since "blood-colored" hints at something raw and alive hidden under the surface. The overall mood is hushed and watchful, as if the speaker is walking slowly and noticing how much is going on just out of sight.