The speaker is writing to an aunt she misses, from a place where hardly anyone "speaks Woman." That odd, striking phrase suggests loneliness: she is surrounded by people who don't understand a way of talking and knowing that she shares with her aunt.
An owl keeps appearing, and the speaker reads it as a teacher. The bird is patient and focused, and also violent. She catches frogs, leaves tracks in the snow, and leaves rabbit blood behind. Yet she sings in the dark too. The owl seems to show that speaking well means waiting, aiming, and then striking, which is why the speaker talks about hunting words.
By the end, the mood shifts from isolation toward quiet solidarity. The men still aren't listening, but the women sing "for ourselves and our nieces." The closing lines are modest and hopeful: they are learning to hunt, and still learning to fly. The poem feels cold and watchful, but also determined.