Note: This poem originally appeared in the Fall 2019 issue of CRUX (Vol. 55, No. 3).
“To name is to praise and lose in one instant.” — Christian Wiman
With each step, we flatten a new leaf:
the striped maple, tulip poplar,
fat three-fingered sassafras,
draw our eyes down, then up again
to find their source;
a see-saw gravity.
My husband kneels, compares each
with his Trees of the Smokies guide.
He is Adam naming the animals.
When young, I imagined him
a door-prize announcer, pulling each
name (surprise!) from a shaken hat.
Now, I walk ahead
and study the creature within me
I know by movement alone,
looking down, swelled belly,
and up again to find your name,
perhaps in the bark of a tree? or a star?
one in the multitude Abraham saw.
Did he know God?
Nameless and many named.
Do I know you, my unnamed one,
or you, me?
closer now than you will ever be.
I sense you blindly
by your sudden, gentle flight in me,
your soul too vast to pin down.
Yet we must give you a sound –
to be called out in corridors,
whispered with desire –
an echo that might open you
a handle to grasp and let go.