Agnes Vojta

Naming

My first day here it snowed,
and birds like drops of blood
sat in the grey-green branches of a tree.
I was a stranger. Did not know
the names of tree or birds.
Naming is knowing.
Naming means: to tell apart,
to be familiar with the detail
that separates one from the other.
Familiarity breeds love.
I learned to name the cedars
and the cardinals, anemone
and great blue heron, spiderwort
and wild geranium. Every year,

I add new names: white avens,
thimbleweed, rose-breasted grosbeak –
each another root
I grow here.

Agnes Vojta grew up in Germany and now lives in Rolla, Missouri, where she teaches physics at Missouri S&T and hikes the Ozarks. She is the author of Porous Land (Spartan Press, 2019) and The Eden of Perhaps (Spartan Press, 2020), and her poems have appeared in a variety of magazines.