Reality Check

Jumped on the JUMP,
my driver with downcast eyes
slumping out of his seat,
seemed surprised to see me.
Asked to see my bus pass.

I settled in to watch him.
We both stared
at his hands, a bit trembling,
and my imagination took off:

Is this to be our last ride?
Does the driver have what it takes
to deliver us safely,
or is this checkmate?

The bus shuttered, putt-putt
for starters, 'till my driver
stuttered away from the curb,
and we were off, bumbling
with the rough n' tumble of the
JUMP, through the countryside
for old men, gliding over speed
bumps with cautious grace,
as if he either heard my concern,
or simply valued our lives—

I busied myself
with the swirling routine
of counting rocks, difficult,
then switched to leaves, difficult,
'till at last I settled on trees,
just enough of them to carry
my attention in their soon-stripped
arms.

For my driver, a STOP sign reads:

Slow down indefinitely,
Till you reach an
Opening in the
Penumbra,

and ONLY then— he resumes.

I enjoy the view out the window
as if it were my rolling credits.
The clouds loom
like unconquerable continents.
The white billows
behind the mountains
like the fanned-out feathers
of an albino peacock.
The crook of the dominant peak
sees a bus inching its way
down the wheat-flanked highway.

Brown and white
sheep graze in the field,
frozen, content, ornately
arranged like the surviving
pieces of a chess game.
There's a checkmate
everywhere you look.