This is what I mean
about reality being amazing.

Sometimes,
after a grueling day
of human societal crud,
I'll be watering my garden at dusk.

The cats play;
the humming bird and bees
snag the last drops of nectar off the sunflowers
before they sleep.

The cicadas and crickets start signalling for mates.

A liquid breeze
blows through the alley
and the tree tops hiss like ocean waves.

I'll pull out my old plastic lawn chair,
sit smack in the middle of the alley
and look up.

The sunsets here are gold and tangerine and grape
and other sizzling colors.

The sun melts behind the mesas and volcanoes
and the stars appear.

I can't see much, here in the city,
with the light pollution and the dust.

But I pick out Orion.
I find the Summer Triangle
and the star, Vega.
I see a planet now and then.

But I remember
peering through home made telescopes
of the local astronomy society
well after midnight
as we shared picnic baskets and sipped coffee.

I remember
the first time I saw a globular cluster,
on the far side of the Milky Way.

I think about how beings on other worlds
might be seeing our part of the sky.

I think about Dr. Sagan.

I think about my father.

I think about Galileo
and Voyager
and ancient peoples
who looked up at the same sky I'm seeing
and wondered, just as I am now.

And I often weep with the glory of it,
with the magnificence of it,
with the intensity and intricacy of it.

And, suddenly,
the guy who called me a name,
the slum lord,
the drug addicts,
the smell of urine by the dumpster,
the pettiness
and hate
and stupidity
I've slogged through all day
falls away.

And I am the Universe, conscious of itself.