The Naming

Some nights we feel the furred darkness
of an ancient one's breath and are trapped
in awakening, dismembered
by events we no longer recall.
We can touch the windowsill,
where October air gathers
as hours slip past in thin robes,
the forest a concert of voices.
The last crickets let go of their songs.

The land speaks, its language arising
from its own geography—
the mountains' hulked shapes
are blue whales, remembering
when they were undersea ridges,
and rivers are serpentine strands
hammered from silver, and dark trees
talk to the wind—weaving mortal lives,
drumbeats, pillars of smoke,
voices wavering into updraft,
the storyteller shifting the present.
Copyright Credit: "The Naming" from Weaving the Boundary by Karenne Wood.   Copyright © 2016 by Karenne Wood.  Reprinted by permission of the University of Arizona Press.