A speaker sits beside a frozen pond at dusk and watches a fisher, a dark, weasel-like animal, circle a dead oak hunting mice. The poem follows the hunt closely: the animal's body curves like a "dark sine curve" against the snow, then goes perfectly still, then pounces and comes up empty. The speaker is only an observer, yet the scene leaves them "fuller than before."
The title and the phrase "seasonally appropriate gratitude" suggest a Thanksgiving setting, and the speaker half-jokes about feeling the expected thankfulness. But the gratitude that follows feels real. It is aimed at the animal's beauty, its "wild blood-lust," the rarity of seeing it, and its freedom to vanish. The mood is quiet, wintry and attentive, with a gentle humility. The speaker doesn't try to own or explain the encounter, and is content to have witnessed it from across the ice.