RISE AND SHINE

by Mary K O'Melveny

It’s time to Rise and Shine!

My Mother’s voice calls out.

Positive emphasis.

She greets our newest day.

I’m counting the minutes

left to me to wash up,

quickly dress, grab my books,

pens, papers and race out.

The aging yellow school bus

rumbles up the steep hill,

swaying slightly, rough road

a challenge to the best.

I am in a new world

and I am not amused.

Parents will do these things

and never tell you why.

In the wink of an eye

we had landed here, a farm,

Pacific Ocean left

back, blinking, beckoning.

We’re miles from anywhere,

I cried.  NOTHING is here!

Later, I understood

my Mother thought the same.

What WERE we doing here?

She used to sit often

at the little yard goods

store bus stop.  Longingly.

Sometimes it just makes no

difference where the bus

is headed as long as

you’re on it when it goes.

                                                                                                                                   

But of course she never

did get on.  She came back

home.  Made our little meals.

Took in our tales of woe.

Got us up each morning,

her game greeting the same.

I never even knew if 

she bought a bus ticket.

* * * * *

Mary K O'Melveny is a retired labor rights lawyer living in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her poems have been published in various print and on-line journals such as FLARE:  The Flagler Review, Into the Void, Allegro Poetry Magazine and The Offbeat.  Mary's poem "Cease Fire" won the 2017 Raynes Poetry Competition sponsored by Jewish Currents magazine and appears in the anthology "Borders and Boundaries" published by Blue Threads Press.