Four women sit at a table on a cold night, long past the days when they were simply wandering and gathering. The opening lines suggest lives full of travel and work: paths, mountains, forests, deserts, baskets filled and emptied. Now they are together, and what they do is laugh, even with darkness pressing in and the "Beast" waiting. Their names are roles, Beekeeper, Poet, Old Maid, and the jokes about Granny, with her big ears and sharp elbows, sound like a way of teasing death or old age before it can tease them.
The speaker feels affection mixed with courage. The mood is warm but shadowed: no music, a waning moon, wine running out. When the friends part, their advice is tender and slightly odd. They tell each other to watch, protect their hearts, and listen to "the tears in the ground." The laughter is real, but so is the sense that sorrow lies underneath, and that friendship is how they face it.