The speaker pushes through a forest that feels endless, a "thousand years of struggle", and finally reaches a clearing. But the reward is a letdown. Instead of an answer, there is only empty space and "the remains / of all those who've been here before." Others have made this same journey, and they've left nothing useful behind.
Rather than give up, the speaker decides to keep walking until the trees open and the sky appears, where "true beauty & meaning" seem to be hiding. The last lines turn the forest into a book: the speaker is "lost in the story" and reads it without understanding it.
The mood is weary but quietly stubborn. There's loneliness and disappointment, yet also a stubborn hope. The scattered, staggered line breaks make the poem feel like slow, uncertain steps, as if we're wandering along with the speaker, still searching.