The bus is nearly empty,
Just an old couple up front
Holding hands in silence
And, behind her, two rows back,
A man in a gray jacket
Memorizing her brown hair
So like his first wife’s
That he had forgotten.
She has not forgotten these fields,
Even the cows look the same
As on her first trip down this line
Twelve years ago, sitting beside her mother
Who sat with yarn in her lap.
Going home was easy then,
Holding her mother’s hand
She couldn’t get lost
Even in the crowded station
In Des Moines.
The bus was crowded then,
Although she’s forgotten all the faces.
Even her mother looks hazy
Reflected in the window,
Staring down into her work
As the cows pass by outside.
She can see her now.
No longer bent over her knitting,
But staring out the window
At the endless fields of corn.
Here’s another old one of mine. I don’t always like explaining my poems – if what I was going for didn’t come across in the first place, then that was my failure as a writer. But the image in this that is central to me and sticks with me is looking out the window of the bus, seeing your reflection, and realizing how it has become the same as the mother’s reflection from the past. I’ve taken the bus a lot in the past couple of years, for better and for worse. And times are changing as well, for better and for worse (worse being people watching entire videos on loud speakerphone or having weird personal conversations on speakerphone, of course!)
