The speaker has tried ten times to talk to the future, addressing it as if it were the "eye of winter," a blank, snow-blinded stare where the past ("was") has been erased. Now they will try an eleventh time, and this attempt feels steadier. They promise to speak without blinking and to tell the future that it won't repeat what was, or bring back what was lost, but it will carry what has been learned.
The speaker is worn but stubborn, and they take in the cold and the biting wind as the price of speaking. Naming comes first, and that gives a little reassurance. Then the winter itself seems to comfort them, hinting that inside its white, clouded "cataract" lies a web of sticky crystals, and in them another future. The poem ends on an open request: "If you'll speak it to me." The mood is chilly and quiet, but it holds a cautious hope, and it suggests the speaker can't find that future alone.