This stream has no name anyone now remembers,

Older than forgotten, a language we no longer speak,

Syllables that have washed away after generations

Of not hearing the words telling us who they were

And from where they had come, and even now

We can say little of where we lived our whole lives

And even less of the places our parents and theirs

Gave names to with the sounds of their voices, soft

Vowels of rushing water, hard consonants of stones.

Perhaps here was once Water-Rising-From-Stones

or Place-Of-Yellow-Fish.  Or a man came to claim

The glints of light on stones and water were gold,

And one spoke of it with his dead daughter's name.

 Downstream where it bends around arching oaks

And cottonwoods is tumbled deadfall and I see

The one room it had been, leaning over the water,

Following its shadow into it, a canoe leaking

Moonlight, a life leaving and leaving its silence.

Where we come now is only in passing, and beyond

Any need to name each place to make it our own,

To mark our passages so others may follow, find

Us there, and know from where we have come.

We are speechless, nameless now as this stream

Lost for words, going on and never looking back

Or knowing what can only be heard at a distance.