The title promises war reporting, but what the poem delivers is a backyard. The speaker sits on an overturned flowerpot in a garage, looking through a dirty window at wrens feeding their young, a dog barking, a flycatcher resting on a dogwood branch. Nothing dramatic happens. Birds come and go, a chipmunk squeals and bolts, a breeze runs through the grass, and a vireo keeps singing.
The word "Meanwhile" in the first line is the key. It suggests that somewhere else there is bigger, harsher news, and that this ordinary life is going on at the same time. The poem never says what that news is, so we have to infer it from the title. The speaker seems to be taking comfort in small, steady things: hatchlings eating and growing, a song that goes "on and on." The mood is calm and attentive, though the hiding spot and the dirty window hint at someone sheltering a little, needing to watch the world rather than join it.