The speaker stands still in a mountain hollow at dusk, typing on a phone and watching the world go by. A wind blows without a storm, children play or fight somewhere far off, and a deer trots past. The speaker is so quiet and motionless that they feel almost like part of the landscape, "still as a tree," yet slightly vibrating, apparently from the presence of a Swainson's thrush passing through on its yearly migration north.
The title and the opening phrase "Mind the gap" play on a familiar warning about the space between train and platform. Here the gap is literal, a pass between mountains, and also a feeling of separation: humans settle in the gap, while birds see only one continuous ridge, "a high way / made of wind and forest." The final line turns the warning into advice: to mind the gap is to keep going. The mood is calm, attentive and quietly wondering, with a gentle humor in the speaker's apology to the deer.