The poem begins with a simple act of watching: a speaker looks at a horse and sees an animal that "minds nothing." The horse is naked, content, and oddly godlike, free of the worry that weighs on people. That image sets up a sharp contrast with humans, who seem "full of sad stories" and sick with no doctor in sight.
From there the mood darkens. The speaker wonders which sea could make us fear what we have done, and which curse might trouble us. These questions suggest a kind of numbness, as if people have done harm without feeling its weight. The title, "Soterial," relates to salvation or healing, which fits the longing for a cure that never arrives.
The last lines turn small and strange: our ear bones are "so small and thin." After all the big questions, the poem ends on fragility. It hints that we are delicate creatures, barely able to listen, and perhaps too frail to bear our own guilt.