Pretend that I charge you
to name all the creatures,
great and small, leaf and limb,
so you can feel in control
of your outer world when
so much inside is unnamable.
Your numberless descendants
will count and classify
kingdoms they think they rule.
Dominion, they will call it,
like one of their orders of angels.
On and on it will be orders and ranks,
columns and rows,
greater than and less than.
Until some learn that which is named
is no longer itself.
Then will begin the unknowing.