The stars still looked the same from our front yard
after the metaphysicians packed and went,
discouraged by one fortune teller’s card—
not even she could tell us what it meant.
The moon, darling of the materialists,
unwound its silver spool across the lawn
as it had always done. The scientists
in lab coats took measurements until dawn.
What difference did it make? An emptiness
yawning from boredom in the endless blue
implicated us both. Things mattered less
and less then, considering what we knew.
We touched the grain of Aristotle’s table
and thought the pure idea of Plato’s chair.
We kept on for as long as we were able
in the brisk ontologies of winter air.