The poem reads like a series of quick glimpses from a walk in the woods, each one set down without much explanation. The speaker lifts a rock and finds a salamander, and everything seems to stop for a moment. Then come turtleheads, which are flowers, and a small, funny beat of self-awareness: the speaker notices their own mouth hanging open in surprise and closes it. That detail makes the speaker feel human and a little sheepish, caught up in wonder.
The mood then darkens. The ashes are dead, killed by borers and stripped by woodpeckers, left pale and bare. Death sits right next to the earlier delight. The final image ties the poem together: the salamander has escaped, leaving its tail behind, and the tail keeps wriggling. Life carries on in a strange, almost unsettling way, even in loss. The poem suggests that the woods hold wonder and decay side by side, and the speaker pays attention to both with quiet curiosity.