Naming

We who love you named you

when you were far too young

to accept such a gift, passed you

around murmuring the sound

as an incantation of safety,

success, something more

than we wish for the clouds

unnamed by the sky, mountains

of the wilderness seen but not

called into service yet. Or less,

maybe, less than the translucence

of the amphibian below earth,

gripping its rock in the long dark.

Too much, we said to you. Too much.

Better that we tether you to us

than leave you to the waves,

where the water might never

have found a word for you.

First published in Dawn Chorus, Salmon Poetry, Ireland.