(for Ann Popple Muller) 

My mother leans over a bush by the side of the path. Tarweed, she says. Rubs its sweet grime between her fingers. She offers up her hands. I inhale roof, road, railroad track. 

*

She stops to name everything she sees. Pearly Everlasting. Verbascum. Chicory bluer than river or sky. She is litany and church. Staff in hand, she makes her way slowly through the pasture, bends and blesses each bramble and branch.

*

I imagine Eden like this: Tumbled growth of new blackberry vine, too young to bear fruit. Something that smells like walnut, green and bitter. Curled fists of dying Queen Ann’s Lace. My mother’s simple act of naming making each wild thing more visible – more real.

*

A young man and his grandfather wade towards us, hip-deep in brown grass. The young man’s eyes unfocused as he scans for something far beyond this field. He holds his hand out. I take it in my own. He mutters something in a language only he can understand. Then, Go ahead. Tell her your name, says the grandfather. Colin Holly, he says. My name is Colin Holly.

*

We are the animal that names. Descendents of Adam, we revel in horsetail, snakeroot, Venus’ comb. But my mother is tired now – naming an exhausting business. She leans into my ribs, catches her breath.

*

Heading back to the parking lot, we come upon the towering remains of a blossom forest. My mother and I are suddenly dwarfed, and even on our toes, we barely reach the rusted clusters. Cow parsnip, she says. I marvel at the perfection of flower and name – awkward as cows, homely as parsnips, fragile canopy of word and petal. 

Eve Müller lives in Eugene, Oregon with her sweetheart. She has recently published in Camas, Cirque, Sequestrum, The Writing Disorder, Thieving Magpie, Empty House, and Marrow Magazine. Some of her work has been anthologized, and her book of lyrical memoir, Guide to the Ruins, was published by Plan B Press. She was awarded a PLAYA artists’ residency this year. When Eve is not writing, she bakes, hikes, conducts research on autism, hangs out with her mom and two feral daughters, and skinny-dips whenever/wherever she can.