poetry

The Gift of Naming
by Jeneen R. Garcia

Plunging
into the deep sea,
my body dissolves in
still blue—
I find no longer “fish”

but silvery schools of fusilier,
that lonely grouper in a cave, a pair of
butterflyfish darting
between branches of Acropora.
Seagrass is now
a meadow of spoon-shaped Halophila
and beds of Thalassia feeding
pufferfish and nudibranch.

Linnaeus only carried on
what Adam knew needed doing.
Not a matter of discovering,
rather, a rite of knowing.
As fishermen must weave nets of names
for crab--kasag, lambay,
alimango, alimasag--
one sees only what one seeks to know.

When I love, this is where I must begin:
beloved, tell me my name.

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