The poem reads like a short report from someone whose body or spirit has stopped working. The speaker "broke down," and the strange tools they list, a "night tooth" and a "dirt fiddle," suggest a rough, earthy kind of music and a hunger that belongs to the dark. These images are odd and hard to pin down, but they give the speaker a wild, folk-like voice.
With "nothing to live by," the speaker has no plan or purpose left. So they fall back on playing "the country uncle," a humble, storytelling figure, and keep a journal of the trip that ended "to this bed." Judging by the wording, the bed could mean illness, exhaustion, or simply a low point.
The mood is tired but oddly calm, even a little wry. There's no panic here. The speaker has hit bottom and responds by doing what they can: making something out of the breakdown by writing it down.