The title sets up a situation we all know: a near-meeting, a person who crossed your path and never became part of your life. Bonta gives it three short lines. "Passing in the night" is a familiar phrase for two people who barely notice each other, and the speaker uses it as a starting point before pushing it somewhere stranger.
The last two lines shift from the ordinary to the cosmic. "Now dirt / now wind" suggests that these two people are not only separated by chance but are also made of matter that keeps changing form. The speaker seems to be looking at the missed connection across a huge span of time, where bodies return to earth and scatter into air. The judgment is hard to pin down, but the tone feels quiet and wistful rather than angry or desperate.
What stays with you is the mix of loss and calm. The meeting never happened, yet the two figures end up in the same elements anyway, drifting and mingling in a way they never did while alive.