Ted Kooser, "Flying at Night"

Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations.
Five billion miles away, a galaxy dies
like a snowflake falling on water. Below us,
some farmer, feeling the chill of that distant death,
snaps on his yard light, drawing his sheds and barn
back into the little system of his care.
All night, the cities, like shimmering novas,
tug with bright streets at lonely lights like
his.


-- Ted Kooser, "Flying at Night," Flying at Night: Poems 1965-1985, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1980.