Which train will come, I’ll try to guess
But that won’t really help my stress.
It’s building up as crowds surround
Creating quite the urban mess.

The tourists all must think we’re nuts
To cram on platforms where such gluts
Of humans stream without an end
To pack so tight we’re touching butts.

Announcements say the train is near.
We crane our necks; no lights appear.
Then suddenly the rumble sounds
Of braking by the engineer.

The subway’s stuffy, cramped and late.
It does its best to aggravate
But all that we can do is wait
And that is what we do; we wait.

(apologies to Robert Frost)

The tix are free so people wait
For hours, sitting on the grass,
But we are old; to compensate
There is a bench to plop one’s ***.

By half-past eight, the benches filled,
The ticket-seekers settle in
While late arrivals, not too thrilled,
Allow the side-show to begin.

They make us move so they can squeeze
Their bodies on a proper seat,
Without the courtesy of “Please”
(Ticked-off, no doubt, at their defeat).

A flutist sets his stand and plays;
A grouchy woman bids him cease.
He grumbles when nobody pays,
His music, though, a sweet release.

The conversations ebb and flow.
We people watch (the pickings fine).
I bond with folks I do not know;
That happens on the senior line.

The hours pass; we get our tix.
We’ll meet again when it gets dark
To share in summer’s yearly fix
Of seeing Shakespeare in the Park.