The detail that best contributes to the optimistic mood in this excerpt is "all of us hoping, waiting on signs / of the change." This detail suggests that there is a sense of hope and anticipation for something positive to come, which contributes to an overall optimistic mood. The other details are more neutral or even slightly eerie, with the image of eating heavily salted apples on a tomb and the mention of sentinel owls peering from a grove of old pines. The detail about the sleeping Victorian corpses feeding the speaker secrets is also somewhat mysterious and unsettling.