Midnight. Midsummer.

A man steps out to his back yard
and listens to the crickets
pining for other crickets.

A dog barks at the cosmos.

While others lounge in their Barcaloungers
the man is having a kind of Dover Beach moment
in which he hopes to have an immense thought or two.

So he looks up at the glittering god-haven.

And there’s the Milky Way, the Pleiades, 
along with some quarks, dwarf stars, and supernovas.

And the thought the man has is of insignificance.

Under the bright furnaces of Orion
he contemplates his inconsequentiality.

It is a good feeling to have for several minutes,
reflects the man, who is holding a glass of pinot noir.
It puts things in perspective.

But it’s also good to go back inside
and resume one’s place
in front of the local and regional news,

if only to get, to some degree,
one’s significance back.