Pratt opens with a playful, almost fairy-tale picture: coyotes planting acorns, squirrels growing thumbs, bears craving beef and beer, elephants digging tunnels. Nature seems to be getting ready for something, and even the long-dead acorn-eating peoples are rising to tune their drums. The speaker presents all this with a straight face, then asks, "Is this so strange?" After all, people once believed in spirits in every tree and in animals that could speak.
The tone then turns on us. Calling the reader a "stubby primate" living in "illusions of grace," the speaker suggests we understand far less than we think. Our minds reach beyond our skulls and mingle with the cosmos, the universe is speeding up for reasons no one knows, and consciousness is a soul nobody has ever found. The mood is wry, humbling, and a little thrilling. The title's "getting serious" is ironic: the poem's wonder is exactly how it makes its point about our limits.