Two women meet after two years apart and notice that both have gone gray. The speaker's hair is more fully gray, her friend's only lightly streaked. From there the poem becomes a long, loving meditation on the color itself. The speaker wonders why so many people hide it, whether from fear of death or simply because gray seems like a dull blend of black and white. Then she answers by filling the world with gray: mist, harbor water, cloud cover, the paint on a house, the chin of a dog.
The mood shifts from slightly uneasy questioning to calm acceptance, even joy. Gray becomes a sign of comfort with oneself, of knowing what you want, of being "like this gray hour, come as is." The repeated "Gray is..." works almost like a chant, wearing down the color's bad reputation. By the end, the speaker's feeling is warm friendship: her friend's gray strands lift her mood, and she feels understood.