I Miss The School Bus

Yes,
it was a pain to get up before the sun
and trudge out to the street corner
where me and my fellow lethargic students
gathered to begin our cross-town school-trek,

But that mobile corridor
with the uniform brown upholstered seats
was always warm and mostly safe
save for those times when some delinquent
would light fires in the way way back
or provoke the mostly docile bus driver.

We trundled along,
lulled by rhythmic blasts of hot air in winter
sparing breezes from cracked windows in summer
and the constant jostling from the overused shocks,
content and mostly quiet with our whispered preteen scheming.

It was a floating island in-between
a safe harbor, home base, a steady place
where all was changeless waiting
accompanied by Top 40 hits
like some prepubescent Brigadoon.

Adulthood can be weighty
and looking back
youth, although torrid
was mostly simple.