50+ Lifestyles

Max’s Musings

By Max Molleston

An artist friend who doubles as a poet when she sees an opening, made a visit to a school bus in late summer. For those of us who were drivers or riders, or just admired those yellow conveyances, her poem is for you. This is one special school bus. The poem is from the pen of Maggie Rippenger,  a Quad-Cities resident through much of her life.

The Last Stop

The old gal tilts at the edge of the road like a

balloon that has lost it’s air, 

empties her stories through the open yellow

door and broken windows. 

Does she not know that the gravel ends at her front bumper? 

Not notice there are no more giggles and screams,

that no one wants to use the restroom the minute

she pulls away from the curb?

Now that it’s job is done, does the stop sign mean anything?

Extended in a futile attempt to stop what?

The target of souvenir hunters, will there be a tomorrow?

Wild life move in where squirrelly kids once sat,

make nests in old worn out seats.

The smell of sweaty gym shoes and sweatier bodies

replaced by the musky scent of mice,

stinking to the point of nausea, 

So she sits like a leaning tower in a faraway place, waiting     

for nature and thieves to reclaim her parts.

Ashes to ashes, rust to dust. 

Built in a noisy factory, lived a life of community service,

it ends at the last stop, alone

on a dead-end country lane.

Who, having been a “partner” in such a yellow
transporter, does not savor some memories of these rides?

Max’s Muse concludes our year, exploring American Indian language, as poetry. Join us here.