Three short scenes from a hard winter make up this poem. First, birch trees bend under freezing rain until they snap. Then rhododendron leaves, which look as tough as ancient scrolls, get stripped off by deer with nothing else to eat. Nothing in these lines is softened. The cold and hunger simply win.
The last stanza turns, though. "Some always resprout from the roots," the speaker says, and the plants seem to carry "who knows how many / lifetimes of practice" at starting over. The phrase is a little wry, as if recovery were a skill learned by repeating it.
The mood is sober but not hopeless. The speaker watches the damage without drama, then ends on quiet admiration for what survives underground. The date in the title suggests a late-winter moment, when the harm is visible and new growth is still hidden. Judging by the imagery, the poem finds comfort in that hidden persistence.