The speaker lives in a remote mountain hollow, and the poem moves between a restless, almost violent inner urge and a quieter, humbler picture of daily life. Early on, the speaker feels the forest growing inside them, building "fuel and hunger" for a spark. That longing leads to dreams of slashing, burning and plowing like the ancestors, or of replacing old trees with windmills. Even the windmills are described as "deadly flowers" that cut the air for migrating birds, so the poem doesn't offer a clean, innocent solution. Human progress and human appetite both look dangerous, and "our doom laid out like a meal for ravens" sounds a grim note.
Then the tone settles. The speaker admits to living above a crawl space, too poor for a cellar, with a garden that feeds slugs and voles. The ending, with mint humming with solitary bees, is gentle and alive. The mood is wary and wistful, but it finds a modest peace in sharing the land with other creatures.