The poem reads like a walk through a woodland hollow, with the speaker stopping to note one thing after another. A cucumber magnolia stands beside a fallen tree of the same kind. Under a white oak, old charcoal crumbles out of a bank, and the speaker calls it 200 years old. That detail suggests people once worked here, though the poem doesn't say how. Then comes a bright red club, a spike of berries or a flower, with a rotten handle, and finally a jack-in-the-pulpit.
The ending turns playful. "Jack or jill" refers to the way this plant can change sex over its life, and the speaker's wording, "transitioning to female / from the pulpit," treats that fact with a mix of curiosity and wit. The mood is quiet, attentive and a little amused. Death and decay (the toppled tree, the charcoal, the rotten handle) sit right beside growth and change, and the speaker seems content to watch both without making a fuss.