stopped at a light by the park

I saw a lady

bent over and yelling at her dog

I couldn’t make out her words

but she was very angry

launching her litany bitterly

into the ear of a beautiful blue-silver 

who didn’t seem to care at all

it struck me how insignificant all this is

how what we think of life is

less than a liminal parade

that lady’s problems didn’t mean

anything to that dog

or to me, as the light turned

and I drove on through

and neither do mine, to the sun

compelling itself toward us

with less in the way

that thin layer getting thinner, 

melting away, dropping death down

by rising degree and wiping us all

away, ending these Romes and foibles

burning us and all this out 

and through and through.