The speaker describes a landscape so vivid that looking at it hurts. The opening line says the "sudden confrontation with beauty" kills you "every time," so beauty here is less a comfort than a shock. The speaker imagines the colors of sky, grass and sea as paints that once belonged to children, which suggests something fresh and innocent. Then comes a turn: "in my country," even the primary colors are mixed with "birds flowers and sadness." Beauty and sorrow can't be separated.
The images that follow grow harsher. Shadows are sharp as a knife at the throat, and the bright sky is like looking into the face of God, too intense to bear. The poem ends quietly, with silence that "finally betrays you." The mood is awed, tense and mournful. The poem doesn't say what the sadness is, but judging by the imagery, the speaker's homeland is lovely and heavy with feeling at once.