Bus Stop by Donald Justice
“Lights are burning
In quiet rooms
Where lives go on
Resembling ours.
The quiet lives
That follow us—
These lives we lead
But do not own—
Stand in the rain
So quietly
When we are gone,
So quietly . . .
And the last bus
Comes letting dark
Umbrellas out—
Black flowers, black flowers.
And lives go on.
And lives go on
Like sudden lights
At street corners
Or like the lights
In quiet rooms
Left on for hours,
Burning, burning.”
— ‘Bus Stop,’ Donald Justice
I don’t know a lot about poetry — and certainly don’t read it very often — but I just spent five minutes looking up the late poet Donald Justice. Reading this poem several times and then learning about its creator has been a nice way to kickstart the morning. May I suggest the same for you?
{That car — legally parked — is juuuuuust the right height to not block any words.}
originally published on instagram