Read as a list of things that have run out, the poem builds a quiet picture of a world squeezed dry. The title, "Limits to growth," suggests that something has been pushed as far as it can go, and the speaker counts up the cost. Open land is gone, and the streets are "full of full people," a phrase that feels crowded and a little bloated, as if people are stuffed with something but not truly nourished.
The losses then get more personal. The speaker has run out of leaves "to speak with" and hills "to take posture from," as though nature once taught us how to talk and how to stand. Without it, we seem to lose our voice and our balance. The last lines are the bleakest: "out of parts for God / out of world." The speaker seems to feel that even the sacred has no space left. The mood is spare, uneasy, and mournful, with no comfort offered at the end.