Newmarket III

Part III

I live in a building named for a man—

always men with these new people!

I think he owned a newspaper

Or a mill

Or something someone thought was important.

I might have met him sometime before he died.

The nurses here say that’s not possible,

but they don’t know how old I am,

so how can they say?

They say I’m as old as the hills.

I seem to think I recall when the hills were just babies

Babies wrapped in short green grass

And swaddled close to the earth.

People would come through me then,

traveling from water to water.

Did it so often they made a trail.

Maybe we could have been friends

if I had cared at all,

but I really didn’t.

I was too busy just being myself.

What do I care about the mills

and distillery

and rows of carrots they forced from the earth?

It was a little pinch in my side,

nothing more.