Soon I will pull an emptiness behind me Over these hills the way I used to Pull the empty rabbit traps Over the snow Each and every one of them sprung And empty as my belly But first I have to drop off the last boy Who lives the farthest out I’m not even supposed to take him this far But I’ve lied to men I’ll never meet About where it is he lives He moves a few seats closer So he is sitting right behind me Out of the kindness I can see He suffers from and will suffer From all his life but we don’t speak We are both of us much too shy And anyway what is there To say to one another? I am old and black and he is young And white and we just happen To share a world We can both see its sorrowful Beauty without having To tell one another about it Yes the nameless cricks The road crosses Yes the oaks and lanes That lead to houses That will never be mine To walk up to their doors would be To have the police called on me I know by the way he stares Out the window that All this must move him still Though these woods are too small To remain mysterious to him for long He will grow up and not know What to do but leave forever And from the distance he will put Between us he will try To write about me using my voice To do it the way one borrows A friend’s gun to kill him He will write about what he believes It must have been like for me To drive this bus With his breath on my neck But I’m not driving this bus I am dragging it behind us Like an empty trap over the snow Thinking I know Just what my father will say When I walk in
The Bus Driver
The Bus Driver
The Bus Driver
Soon I will pull an emptiness behind me Over these hills the way I used to Pull the empty rabbit traps Over the snow Each and every one of them sprung And empty as my belly But first I have to drop off the last boy Who lives the farthest out I’m not even supposed to take him this far But I’ve lied to men I’ll never meet About where it is he lives He moves a few seats closer So he is sitting right behind me Out of the kindness I can see He suffers from and will suffer From all his life but we don’t speak We are both of us much too shy And anyway what is there To say to one another? I am old and black and he is young And white and we just happen To share a world We can both see its sorrowful Beauty without having To tell one another about it Yes the nameless cricks The road crosses Yes the oaks and lanes That lead to houses That will never be mine To walk up to their doors would be To have the police called on me I know by the way he stares Out the window that All this must move him still Though these woods are too small To remain mysterious to him for long He will grow up and not know What to do but leave forever And from the distance he will put Between us he will try To write about me using my voice To do it the way one borrows A friend’s gun to kill him He will write about what he believes It must have been like for me To drive this bus With his breath on my neck But I’m not driving this bus I am dragging it behind us Like an empty trap over the snow Thinking I know Just what my father will say When I walk in