Figuring it out

My walk begins with a flame
that touches my cigarette through the humid air,
and lonesome footstepts, solemn in the night.
There is no muffled music lingering,
no pounding of a distant bass note,
only skittering gravel and shuffling gait.

How long have I been walking,
how long the sidewalk, flashing beneath my feet?
Once the cigarette lies dormant on the corner
I have no choice but to return
and already I see, harsh the lights of my apartment,
beckoning home-
For I have also seen the great, red-brick buildings of the campus
stern leviathans standing against softly-lit trees
and I am nothing compared to them.