On Buses

contributed by Lance Odegard

Buses are the only vehicles you find
driving around with the interior lights on—
rumbling through the city with illuminated strangers,
light spilling out of the windows, melting the watching dark.

Do you find this odd? Surely TransLink
isn’t showing new concern, hoping to provide a few extra
moments for students to catch up on reading,
are they? The driver does know where he's going, right?

He’s not up there with a map draped across the steering
wheel – was that Alma or Arbutus?
And it’s not like we all have lots to catch up on and need to visit—
...is that your new sweater?…

So, why are the lights still on?

They’re not much. They feel faint and foreign,
almost invisible to our indifference—
yet in the midst of this absorbent darkness, light,
quietly resting on the tops of our shoulders.

It’s 10:55pm on a Tuesday night
and I can barely suspend the disbelief to admit this,
to hold the notion that we ride accompanied,
even to say: Emmanuel.