The poem begins in a low place. The speaker feels helpless, convinced that even their own mind is plotting against them. Everything goes wrong in quick, almost comic steps: a wobble, a trip, a broken ankle, a crawl into unfamiliar ground. The questions "To what? For what?" sound exhausted and lost.
Then comes the turn. Looking up, the speaker meets another version of themselves, calm and striding forward with an offered arm. The surprise is gentle. When the speaker asks, "Is it really you?", the reply, "No, it's you," suggests the helper and the helped are one and the same. Strength was never somewhere else; it was in the speaker all along.
The mood moves from panic and self-blame to quiet relief. Walking "shoulder to shoulder," the two selves go back over the path and gather what had been lost. The ending is hopeful but modest: the speaker finds there is more to them than they remembered.