Bonta's poem follows a group of travelers, and the "we" pulls the reader in alongside them. The opening image, a river running through every prayer, suggests that movement and devotion are tangled together. The journey feels half spiritual from the start. The travelers go looking for hills but find "prodigious tales" instead, so what they come across is less a landscape than a set of stories, perhaps exaggerated ones.
The mood turns uncertain and a little grim. The trip is "worth going" to see, "or not see," as if the speaker can't decide whether it matters. Then come "tombstones in the street" and "ash for lye," images of death and of things burned down into something useful. The poem seems to hint at loss and leftover remains.
The ending is quietly unsettling. Travel to far enough places, and "we become common talk." The travelers end up as the tales other people tell. The speaker sounds wry and resigned rather than angry.