What Is This Frenzy of Naming?
Every day I go out with guides and charts,
check undersides of leaves, splotches on bark.
I want to know the names,
be able to say
good morning buttonbush
good morning gumbo limbo
as though by naming
I might claim an intimacy.
Intimacy requires more.
Intimacy is slow. It knows
not only what’s here but what has been
and what is forming in the bud. For that
I must stay, know the subtle rhythms
of a year, what comes and goes
and comes again, texture of it, color of it,
shape and smell, sting and flower, how the tangle
thickens and then recedes,
where waters move among the stems,
what burns. Now early sun
spreads over sawgrass. Dew dries. Water brightens.
One great blue heron arrives at the usual place.
All day he will stand there, watching.
Anne McCrary Sullivan is a Florida Master Naturalist and an avid canoeist. She is author of a book of poems, a memoir, and co-author of two books on the Everglades. Read more.
“What Is This Frenzy of Naming?” appeared in Ecology II: Throat Song from the Everglades (WordTech Editions, 2009).