I was sitting beside my mother on the couch,
knitting a blanket for my girl. My mother held
the yarn in her lap, a cloud of muted pinks.
Outside, the tall dry grasses weaved
in golden evening light. A Western Warbling Vireo
rambled on in its jumbled, warbly way. Mom spoke
of her plans for dinner the next night
and I knit two, purled six, knit two, purled six.
She guided the soft wool through her fingers,
keeping just the right amount of slack. I felt
such a tide of love for her. Wanted to tell her
I’m sorry for every time I’ve been hardened,
every time I’ve pushed her away instead
of pulling her close. I wanted to whisper
the love beyond words, some sentence true
as the sweetness I felt today sitting beside her
in the sun in the grass while we waited
for a Belted Kingfisher or Northern Yellow Warbler
to fly across the pond. But to name a feeling is so
much harder than naming a bird. So when the row
was done, I rested my head on her shoulder, closed
my eyes and nuzzled in. There was only softness
in me then. I’d like to think she translated what
I meant. Just as I knew what she was saying to me
with each length of unspooling yarn: I know
how you love me. I know your heart. I love you, too,
my girl. By the time we rose, we were held
by the dark. Even the swallows were quiet.
Posts Tagged ‘naming’
The Conversation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged birds, conversation, daughter, forgiveness, knitting, love, mother, naming on June 3, 2026| 1 Comment »
What Leaves Us
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged clouds, letting go, naming, sunset on December 9, 2025| 2 Comments »
Once I knew the names for these clouds,
rounded, puffy and rolling.
I rush out the back door
to see them gather in the west
turning vibrant rose and dusky rose and
deeper shades of darkened rose,
and the only word that rises is “oh!”
I remember how I loved the naming.
Now I love the clouds. How they
sow light in the wild blue fields of sky
and invite every dark thing in me
to look up and be part of the beauty
without trying to own it, to practice
loving what is beautiful knowing
for certain it will go.
One Unpronounceable
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged naming, nature, river on February 7, 2025| 4 Comments »
the river decides
it’s discovered me,
renames me after itself
Puhpowee
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged force, language, love, mushrooms, naming, words on June 4, 2024| 11 Comments »
—etymology from Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
In Anishinaabe, there’s a word
for “the force which causes mushrooms
to push up from the earth overnight,”
and I wonder if it’s the same force
that changes the grapes into wine,
that turns an acquaintance into a beloved,
that gathers a handful of notes from a scale
and constellates them
into a tune that scores our lives.
What is the force that moves through us,
that charges the world with becoming?
As much as I love the naming of it,
I love, too, the mystery,
the unspeakable wonder of it,
how the brain is humbled into blathering,
I love the bumbling that happens when our logic
tries to explain the miracle, and the heart
becomes like a blonde morel
that rises up through rocks, through duff.
It says nothing, but oh, how it feels the force.
Where We Are Headed
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communion, flowers, identity, naming, poem, poetry on October 18, 2017| 3 Comments »
I resist any kind of discourse that anchors itself in identity and proceeds from there. As I said before, I want to get behind categorical distinctions and find and work with what human beings share and how, potentially, people can coexist in a world that is extraordinarily diverse.
—Michael D. Jackson, “The Politics of Storytelling” in the Harvard Divinity School News
At first we just say flower. How
thrilling it is to name. Then it’s
aster. Begonia. Chrysanthemum.
We spend our childhood learning
to separate one thing from another.
Daffodil. Edelweiss. Fern. We learn
which have five petals, which have six.
We say, “This is a gladiolus, this hyacinth.”
And we fracture the world into separate
identities. Iris. Jasmine. Lavender.
Divorcing the world into singular bits.
And then, when we know how to tell
one thing from another, perhaps
at last we feel the tug to see not
what makes things different, but
what makes things the same. Perhaps
we feel the pleasure that comes
when we start to blur the lines—
and once again everything
is flower, and by everything,
I mean everything.
What the Guidebook Can’t Tell You
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged naming, poem, poetry, uncertainty, unlearning, wildflower on June 28, 2014| 2 Comments »
I don’t know the name of the flower
about to bloom beside the trail,
but it has the leaves of a lily
and a single bud that hangs heavy
off a long bent stem.
Just as I don’t know the name
for the feeling I have when
I want you to act a certain way
and I have not yet realized
that my wanting is the problem.
Neither of these things matter—
the names, I mean. We like to think
that by naming a thing we know it.
But I have stopped believing that.
Whatever we can name, we start to overlook.
The heliotrope, for instance.
I greet it as we walk by, but I do not
stop to investigate its tiny white flowers,
nor do I rub its leaves between my fingers
to better understand their shape.
Imagine I did not know your name.
So every time we met I would
gather everything I could about you—
the scent of you, the shape of your hands,
the weather of your moods.
And imagine I forgot me, too,
and in discovering you, I’d see
myself anew. And I would be unfamiliar
with words such as happiness or forgiveness
or wound or wife.
Ah, to meet each other like that, the way we meet
this strange flower. More inquisitive than convinced.
More curious, less sure. Less like gods,
omniscient, commanding, more as if we are the ones
with so much opening left to do.
Sticky
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged eve, fruit, kauai, naming, poem, poetry, temptation on April 10, 2013| 1 Comment »
No one ever said
how high the apple was,
and just how much
of a stretch it might have been
for Eve to pick it.
I think about this today
as I reach for the small, round
purple fruits I cannot name.
There is pleasure and
frustration in not knowing
what to call something
so pleasuresome, so good.
The tree is tall. I do not
need a snake to invite me
to reach. And when I
devour the sweet purple flesh
and the soft cream around
the large black seeds,
I do not need anyone
to bid me take another bite.
I do not share.
From not far away, a rooster
crows. From not far away,
the sound of wind disturbing
dried banana leaves. Those
trees are not so difficult to reach.
Scent of the sea, is it? I do not
pause long to consider the possibilities,
purple juice streaming down
the long, not quite long enough
reach of my arm.
Nomenclature
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged being, experience, naming, nomenclature, poem, poetry, words on August 30, 2012| 2 Comments »
So long I’ve lived
beneath the same brown birds
and still I do not know
which song belongs to which.
So long I’ve walked
through this meadow
and still I refer to all
the tall green stems as grass.
So long I’ve sat across from you
and still I wonder
who you are.
Oh, do you hear it?
One of those birds,
how it sings
so beautifully,
even in the dark.