The way a name lingers in the snow

when traced by hand.

The way angels are made in snow,

all body down,

arms moving from side to ear to side to ear—

a whisper, a pause;

the slight, melting hesitation--

The pause in the hand as it moves

over a name carved in black granite.

The "Chuck, Chuck, Chuck,"

of great-tailed grackles

at southern coastal marshes,

or the way magpies repeat,

"Meg, Meg, Meg"--

The way the rib cage of a whale

resembles the architecture of I. M. Pei.

The way two names on a page

separated by thousands of lines,

pages, bookshelves, miles, can be connected.

The way wind hums through cord grass;

rain on bluestem, on mesquite--

The tremble in the sandpiper

as it skitters over tidal mudflats,

tracking names in the wet silt,

silt that has been building

since Foreman lost to Ali,

since Troy fell--building until

we forget names altogether--

The way children, who know only

syllables endlessly repeated,

connect one moment to the next by

humming, humming, humming--

The way magpies connect branches

into thickets for their nesting--

The curve of thumb as it caresses

the letters in the name of a loved one

on the printed page, connecting

each letter with a trace of oil

from fingerprint to fingerprint,

again and again and again—

Scott Edward Anderson/Alaska Quarterly Review, Summer 2001