The poem plays with a handful of repeating words, "coat," "ochre," "helm," and "coax," and lets them drift between different scenes. First we see a sea captain in an ochre coat, coaxing wind into his sails. Then an artist in a rusty coat coaxes ochre from autumn leaves, and her easel becomes a ship's helm sailing into the winter sky. Painting and steering are treated as the same kind of act: gentle persuasion rather than force.
The third stanza shifts into the language of heraldry, a coat of arms with its purple coat, ochre field and silver helm, so the words take on a formal, almost comic meaning. By the end the tone sours a little. "Too many suit coats," "too many vying for the helm" suggests crowded, competitive leadership, with everyone trying to coax "a resolution from the deep." The speaker seems weary of that jostling. The mood moves from quiet, warm autumn imagery to something more restless and uncertain, leaving the ending unresolved.