Poem for An Early Autumn Morning (6WS)

THE NAMES OF STONES

I have forgotten the names of stones

and clouds, the better to admire color and form

without the burden of name

to tell me what I should be seeing.

The classifications for various sedges

and creeping vines have finally eluded me;

taxonomy can never describe the way

a particular grass tickles your skin

when you walk barelegged through a field,

or the delicate arching of seed heads

heavy and ripe along the side of a shady path.

Nor am I now able to recall 

the fifty words for snow

or sixteen words for water;

knowing the subtle differences between ivies

is less important than it was,

and while I hunt for the name

of that strange red bird

it has grown weary of posing,

and flown back to the nameless tree

in the unnamed wood, and mocks me

with its call, for the rest of the day