The speaker describes a daily routine: every morning, they come across a war. The title, "War correspondence," suggests this happens through reports or messages, though the poem never says exactly how. What they find is oddly small. It begins as "a falling out," like an argument between friends, and then becomes "a field" that men killed "friends and brothers for." The poem moves from a petty quarrel to deadly violence in just a few lines, which makes the cause of the fighting seem painfully slight.
The final image is the strangest: the war is "stopped like a seal / in a well." A seal could mean a lid or a stopper, so the idea may be of something sealed in and kept hidden, or of a conflict that cannot get out or end. The speaker doesn't shout or explain. The tone is quiet, flat and tired, as if the sadness has become routine. The mood is bleak, but it is restrained, and that restraint makes the poem feel more haunting.