Spring is the subject here, and the poem shows it in a string of quick, quiet glimpses rather than explaining it. An otter washes her paws. Birds return, and their songs feel like something remembered. Vultures and hawks glide over a slope, thin deer stand in dry grass, and snowmelt runs cold from the hills. Even the list "Squirrels. Rabbits. Stones." is simple and watchful, as if the speaker is taking in everything at the same level.
The mood is calm, patient, and a little tender. The deer look thin, so winter's hardship hasn't quite left. Then a logging truck grunts far down the road in the last lines. The human world intrudes, but only faintly, and the speaker doesn't scold it. The poem simply sets "its work, its purpose, its heavy load" beside the light, small lives of the animals. The ending leaves us with a gentle contrast between the slow awakening of nature and the steady push of human labor.