William travels to Boston every other week
To visit his granddaughter, Sherry. He always goes by bus.
His daughter, Abigail, who lives just a few blocks from the station
Will be waiting for him with Sherry when he disembarks.
Why the bus? He likes looking out the windows
At the world that scares the sh*t out of him.
His friends always called him "old-school" and old fashioned
But he always took it as a complement.
His ideas and values are old-school.
His habits and tastes are old fashioned.
He always brings a satchel and a suitcase.
In the satchel is the Sunday Times and a National Geographic
From his National Geographic archive.
The Times gets him as far as Worcester,
The National Geographic gets him the rest of the way.
One half hour before his housemate, Charles,
Drives him to the bus station, William eats
Three sesame crackers and a kolachi roll.
(If you don't know what a kolachi is, it is
An Eastern European pastry made with ground poppy seeds.)
Charles' grandma, who immigrated from Czechoslovakia,
Taught Charles how to make them.
Her secret was not to grind all the poppy seeds
And to include chia seeds.
After the crackers and kolachi, William eats a peanut butter sandwich
Followed by a few slices of dried papaya.
On the way to the bus station William sleeps.
Once on the bus William starts reading the Times
And he starts using his tongue to forage for the peanut butter
From the crannies of his molars.
After the peanut butter he switches to the magazine
And starts digging out the papaya from between his teeth.
When his tongue gets tired he uses his little fingernail,
Making sure that no one is watching.
After the papaya he takes out his National Geographic
Opening it to the bookmark. While he reads
He hunts for the sesame seeds.
Lastly he searches for poppy and chia seeds
At the same time.
By the time he disembarks
His teeth are clean.
This is Wiiliam's routine.
Nobody knows he does this,
Except for Charles.
...........
Note on writing this poem: These characters were very real for me. Once I invented them they started just doing what they do, very much like a dream or a video I was watching. I think it is just an aspect of how my 71 year-old (well-oiled) imagination works, and when I die I will probably just slip into a kind of dream and that will be that. Not that I identify with William, but I recognize that I am a little quirky in my old age. It comes out when our "k ids" (34 - 37) are here, not so much when it is just me and my wife. So, following William is just a way of opening the stops on my deeper understanding of how and why older people, even those who still have their minds, tend to distill their lives into routines or rituals. For example, William's ritual of eating foods that will keep him busy cleaning his teeth on the long bus ride so he can visit his granddaughter while traveling through a world that scares him, just felt very real to me. Everything he did made him very human to me, such as making sure no one was watching when he used his little finger nail to remove the papaya from his teeth when his tongue got tired. That is the kind of thing that you "can't make up". As I wrote about William he became more and more real. Or my imagination became more real. It's the same thing.
(Article changed on Jan 05, 2022 at 12:07 PM EST)
