A Deep River Year
 September 10, 2014

Boxes of unsharpened pencils and stacks of notebooks fill the store shelves, and kids lugging oversized backpacks line up at the corners waiting for the buses to haul them off to school. These big yellow buses mean September is here, and a new season. And they carry the most precious of cargo. They make us stop and remember. Driving down a long straightaway of rural highway a couple of days ago, I got caught behind the afternoon high school bus unloading kids every hundred yards or so. That two or three mile stretch of road took an exorbitantly long time to traverse, and I am certain some of the other drivers in the lineup of cars behind me were not quite as patient about the length of their trip.

 My granddaughter reported that she, too, is riding the bus this year. Her new school is a little too far away for her to walk, as she did last year when she attended the elementary school just a few blocks from her house. She developed an aversion to riding the bus several years ago. As a little girl at school for the first time, she got on the bus at the end of the day and was one of the last to get off at the end of a fairly long, circuitous route. The busy day at school had taken its toll: she fell asleep, slumped down on the seat. The driver could not see her. And it wasn’t until the bus pulled into the lot for the night that the driver discovered one tired, scared little girl still on board.

 Hopefully, her bus trips will be more pleasant now. I still remember those rides to school in my own youth: Pete the bus driver and his funny welcome, the vague smell of sour milk and old thermoses, the thump of metal lunch boxes and the squeak of wet rubber boots tromping down the aisle in search of a seat. And I hold on to an old shame. One little girl on our bus route lived in a poor house in the woods, and she got on the bus each day with the same clothes and a worn jacket. Her hair was usually tangled, and she always stared at the floor as she made her way toward a seat at the back of the bus. She was usually greeted with smirks, muffled giggles, and rude gestures, such as kids holding their nose as if something smelled bad. Something did, but it wasn’t her. It was that nobody, not even I, ever offered her a seat.

Girl on the Bus

 Where is she now,
 the little one
 who did not belong
 among all the bright, beloved children?
 She was an outcast, once,
 poor, disheveled, lonely,
 who made the long, painful walk every day
 to the very back of the bus
 waiting for someone to offer her
 a place to sit.
 If I could find her now,
 I hope she would be tall
 and fair of face,
 one whose clear eyes
 has forgiven the folly of the world.
 I pray that her wounded heart,
 scarred by childhood cruelty,
 has been healed by a later love,
 and welcomed into a kinder world.
 If I could find her now,
 I would stand as she came by,
 invite her to sit by me for a while,
 perhaps in a seat by the window
 so that she could smile
 at the loveliness of the world
 and know that on this big bus we share,
 there is a place for her,
 for everyone.

 --Timothy Haut, September 10, 2014