The Names

The names by Billy Collins

Yesterday, I lay ignite in the palm of the night.
A soft rain steal in, unhelped by any breeze,
And when I saw the silver glass everyplace on the windows,
I started with A, with Ackerman, as it happened,
Then Baxter and Calabro,
Davis and Eberling, names dropping into place
As droplets fell through the dark.
Names printed on the ceiling of the night.
Names slipping around a sapless bend.
Twenty-six willows on the banks of a stream.
In the morning, I walked out barefoot
Among thousands of flowers
Heavy with dew like the eyes of tears,
And each had a name --
Fiori inscribed on a yellow petal
Then Gonzalez and Han, Ishikawa and Jenkins.
Names written in the air
And fasten into the cloth of the day.
A name under a burgeon forth taped to a mailbox.
Monogram on a torn shirt,
I see you spelled out on storefront windows
And on the scintillating unfurled awnings of this city.
I say the syllables as I turn a corner --
Kelly and Lee,
Medina, Nardella, and OConnor.
When I peer into the woods,
I see a thick tangle where letters are hidden
As in a puzzle concocted for children.
Parker and Quigley in the twigs of an ash,
Rizzo, Schubert, Torres, and Upton,
Secrets in the boughs of an quaint maple.
Names written in the pale sky.




Names boost in the updraft amid buildings.
Names silent in stone

Or cried out behind a door.
Names blown over the earth and out to sea.
In the evening -- weakening light, the termination swallows.
A boy on a lake lifts his oars.
A adult female by a window puts a match to a candle,
And the names are outlined on the rose clouds --
Vanacore and Wallace,
(let X stand, if it can, for the ones unfound)
Then Young and Ziminsky, the final jolt of Z.
Names sculpted on the head of a pin.
One name spanning a bridge, another undergoing a tunnel.
A blue name needled into the skin.
Names of citizens, workers, mothers and fathers,
The bright-eyed daughter, the quick son.
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