The Naming of Things

Here in the winter
where I walk the blue dawn
houses shake
their sleep from them
in yellow light
after yellow light.
The last of silence
creaks its way to life
and business-like
a shop-shutter flutters
open after a stammering start.

I am a stranger here,
an invader from the north,
come through a hill gap
and across rivers
learning their names.
I know nothing
of the fire in the gap,
the invisible falls.
One place to me
is very like another.

But I will start
right at the beginning,
as a child would
with the naming of things.

Nigel McLoughlin

If you've any comments on this poem, Nigel McLoughlin would be pleased to hear from you.