A man wakes before dawn, turns on the news, and then remembers a chore: the recycling has to go out. The poem starts in ordinary routine, with a screen and a to-do list, but the walk down the path pulls him somewhere else. Fog surrounds him like a "soundproof room," filled only with the mindless urgings of insects. Then he stops. Below him, a pale light seems to travel from one glowworm to the next, going out in one place and flickering on a few feet farther along.
The speaker feels quiet wonder. He doesn't explain what he sees; he says "it seems," which keeps the moment tentative and fragile. The closing image of a "cool signal" crossing "the hidden face / of the earth" sets this small, living message against the news he left inside. The mood is hushed, patient, and gently awed, as if the real news of the morning were happening at his feet.