The Naming
I think
of Adam when beasts
and fowls
were brought to him
for names. How did he keep
them
straight? Carolus Linnaeus
not yet born,
the language of phyla,
genera, species
unavailable until
after Babel
where
male and female differ so
much they
could come from
separate planets
for all he knew.
And he
did this all alone, we read,
without a
help meet for himself.
After it
was finished, he slept
a well
deserved rest and woke up
with a scar
on his side.
He opened
his eyes and before
him saw the
help he hadn’t known
he yearned for—the
mother
of all
living—as different from
himself as
birds of Paradise.
One last name
to come up with.
He
thought hard for us all,
with no
swerving, and called her Eve.
—Donnell
Hunter
25
February 2012
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