Imagine standing alone in a town where nothing moves. That is the scene Hazel McKay sets up: empty streets, tall buildings, a vine climbing a wall, and a blue sky with puffy clouds drifting across it. Nothing happens, and that is the point. The poem is about stillness and what it feels like to be inside it.
The speaker seems to be an observer, watching quietly and a little uneasily. The town is described as "waiting for a sound," and the single-word line "Waiting" hangs there as if the silence were stretching out. The buildings "loom," which makes them feel slightly threatening, even though the sky above looks calm and pleasant. That contrast gives the poem its tension. The mood is hushed, eerie, and expectant, like the moment before something might happen. By ending on the short, isolated word "Silent," the poem leaves us in that quiet, with the feeling that the waiting hasn't ended.