The poem starts with a pun that is easy to miss: "plot" can mean a patch of land, but also a burial plot, or even a scheme. Right away the ground feels like something with intentions, "dangerous for a stranger / to walk on." The speaker seems to see the earth as a place that doesn't welcome outsiders, made of "dirt" and shifting, restless.
Then the poem turns inward. The earth is "as ugly as my life," a blunt, unhappy comparison. The speaker feels weighed down, maybe dissatisfied or low. Yet the final line surprises us: "this one body of flame." Against all that dirt, the speaker pictures themselves as fire, something alive and burning, though perhaps also something that consumes itself.
The mood is bleak but charged. The title, "Earthen," ties everything to clay and soil, while the closing image suggests that inside the heaviness there is still heat and energy.