A walker moves through the woods on a cold, bright morning, feeling something has gone out of them. The opening pun on "offspring" suggests loss, perhaps of youth, energy, or a sense of purpose, and the speaker is left staring "mutely" at whatever turns up. The old road is itself fading into the forest, so the walker and the landscape seem to share the same quiet disappearance.
What the speaker finds are small, stubborn lives: a chipmunk's burrow dug like a mine shaft in the quarry, a millipede coiling along her own "road-self," a wolf spider sitting still on folded legs. Even a rusting nail seems to be slowly bleeding into a sign. Nothing here hurries or complains. The spider's patience becomes a model, and the speaker decides this is "as good a place as any" to wait for the sun.
The ending lifts the mood. Sunlight passes through leaves, which act like refineries, and "yes" it turns to sugar. The poem moves from loss and chill toward a small, hopeful sense of renewal.