The Cloud, No, That One

Black-eyed Susans, purple sage,
Where’s the use In naming names?

Maybe just describe the clouds
Of detailed crowds as common

Nouns and boring adjectives.
The stone with the dry, green lichen on it

Sits in fallen needles near the cliff’s edge—
No that’s not working either. There’s an urge

Once words start congregating together
To narrow the naming, make it precise,

And, once that’s started, there’s the addiction—
Sites, then species, then individuals,

Until names aggressively substitute
For all that names pretend to indicate

For triggering imagined memories.
Then again, where’s the use in not naming?

There’s a vast cloud overhead
Wasn’t up there yesterday,

Won’t be up there tomorrow.
Winds will push in something else,

Nothing created, nothing
Lost, only something borrowed.