4032. INCIDENTAL AMONG THE CARLISLE PAPERS

INCIDENTAL AMONG 

THE CARLISLE PAPERS

Incidental among the Carlisle Papers were the

items left on the list : how often he'd made offers

to adopt, how many visits to his doctors were

kept, what he ate to 'ward off' yellow fever. None

of it worked, of course, and he died in his 45th

year. History little noted, though these papers

are here. I'm reading them; in an old colonial

library in some tiny New England town. Near

to my lodgings, the old Proctor Marble Works

and a gravestone store as well. How touching

and funny all this could seem. Yet, right now,

in this cold, steel rain and all its biting wind,

I care for nothing at all except staying within.

Cradling my arms in hot coffee, reading with

a pen and a notebook, selecting a passage

for this or for that. Carlisle had said: 'to my

mind this modern age is but a passage to

death, a newer way to be found for doing

the same old things, just doing the

same old things.'