Day 13: Name This

Of course, I know this isn't technically day 13...but I needed to take two days off of poeming for lots of reasons.  So here's day 13 of my 30 days of poems...they just don't happen to be consecutive days.  

I shared this poem at church this morning.  I think it's actually the first time ever I have read a poem aloud and my body has not been shaking.  I liked that feeling.  

Name This

I have always been precise in my naming.

I want the just-right word at the just-right time:

I wield the power of my wording like a weapon.

Verbing nouns, changing phrases to make them new

and surprising, I move

to the matters of soul

heart-clenchingly quickly--

hold on, y'all.

This is how things get real.

See, as babies, our parents label our worlds:

"Do you see the light?"

"That's your shirt."

"Big yawn."

"You are so silly."

As toddlers, we ask the questions.

We point and show, and

each item is told to us over and over until

we can hold our world in our crumb-encrusted fingers.

My family cat's name was Coo Coo.

Coo Coo was one of my first words,

and everyone thought it was because

I loved the cat until, at age three

I told my mother that Coo Coo

was despicable.

I wonder how long it took me to find

the just-right word to name that, as playmates go, Coo Coo

was always a bit of a jerk.

I wonder if pride

surged through my three-year-old frame as I knew

I had found my just-right word, had

named the feeling exactly right, I

had spoken.

But just-right words are hard to find,

hard to use, hard to believe in;

naming our lives is not as easy as labeling

lights, and shirts, and

sometimes, I fall away to

solitude and quiet

un-naming of myself and my place, but wonder:

how do I name this worth?

this reclamation?

this embodying?

How do I name this way

I live my world?  I say

here is my heart. 

I named it Myself.

It is power.

It is existing beyond, it is

a word after

a word after

a word, it is naming:

here.  I am here,

holding my world in my hand.

Let me show you the color, the shape

the weight of it.

How heavy it can be.

Stay with me so I can

open my fingers.

Let me show you how beautiful it is

when it hits the light.