A walk up a hill turns into a strange, half-dreamlike offering. The speaker feels an urge to call an owl closer and to tempt it with promises: a cold wind, a river-clear stillness, a dish of fresh fish. Then the scene shifts. People become stones standing upright, as if the landscape has absorbed them, or as if the speaker sees human figures as ancient and silent.
The title, "Communication breakdown," points to the heart of it. The speaker wants to reach the natural world, but the attempt feels clumsy, even faintly absurd. The "antiquity of a doubt / that could not speak" suggests an old, wordless uncertainty about whether humans can truly talk to owls, or to anything beyond themselves. The odd pairing of "owls or breasts" hints that this gap may include the body and desire too.
The mood is eerie, hushed, and a little lonely. By the end the fields are "dark as pitch," and the call goes unanswered.