The speaker remembers a strange, handmade machine from some vaguely mythic past, a "Dark Ages" before ordinary afternoons went sour. It's built of wood dressed up as iron, greased with bear fat, and it creaks like a house full of crickets. At slow speeds, people could climb in among its levers and dance with it, wearing shaman costumes, as if the machine were a kind of bridge to the spirit world.
Then comes the turn. The speaker pushes it too fast, and it flies apart. The poem ends with a quiet, lonely image: the speaker on a hillside under "speechless stars."
The mood moves from playful nostalgia to a hushed sense of loss. The machine seems to stand for something wondrous and fragile, perhaps a way of living or imagining, that works only if handled gently. The speaker's regret is understated, but that silent sky says a lot.