The speaker moves through a city in quiet, wintry moments and slowly arrives at a feeling of relief. The first stanzas collect small things noticed on walks: snow muffling the streets, grass pushing up through the sidewalk, evening alleys as the day's noise dies down, and winds the speaker can feel in their chest. Each line begins with "I have," as if the speaker is listing what they've witnessed and carried.
The last stanza shifts to a memory at the bayside, where ripples chase each other to the wall. The speaker recalls thinking how luxurious it was simply to sit and watch the water, now that "the fears of old" are resolved. The poem doesn't say what those fears were, so we're left to imagine them. The mood is calm and reflective, with a hint of gratitude. The grass trying to grow might quietly mirror the speaker's own recovery, though that's an interpretation rather than something the poem states outright.