The speaker mentally rebuilds the city of their childhood, drawing it out of memory like a map. The roads they travel are really grooves in the mind, compared to the folds of a brain in a photograph. Along them come small, vivid details: carnival lights near a furniture store, flickering shapes on the TV in a dark living room, and a father's smell and shiny bald head.
Life has since carried the speaker away, east and then west, as if spun in a centrifuge. Returning, they find the old storms have died down, and the past now looks like quiet volcanoes covered in green. The feeling is calm, even warm, rather than sad.
In the final stanzas, past and present seem to blend, and the speaker imagines looping through time like a small-plane pilot. The poem ends with a toast, raising a cup to this "elegant simplicity." The mood is contented, reflective, and a little playful.