Old Bill walked off in ’64,
his face a mask of wounded dread.
“To satisfy his need for lore,
he’s wandered down into the core,”
we said.
But no one knew just why he left
or what had gotten in his head.
He seemed of love and joy bereft
and wore his life as ‘twere a heft
of gloom and lead.
Youths sometimes ventured down to seek
the measure of his stately tread.
The evidence he left was weak.
Each time they thought they heard him speak,
‘twas someone else instead.
For years they boldly plummeted
down veins through which he might have fled.
Whatever though he later did,
the veins or he himself kept hid.
Each New Years Day we made his bed.
He sent us now and then a poem
to let us know he wasn’t dead.
We’d tell Old Bill, if he came home,
his pages filled a hefty tome.
We turned them as we broke our daily bread.