Walking Bold Park with nephew 
and I’m inviting him to 
come up with new names for things.

Things like spiders high in trees,
Zamia palms/jiragee,
Zamia resin or sap, tuart trees,
Banksia cones, pine cones,
pine trees,
bayern or coastal pigface,
magpies and more.

I invite him to look at the thing 
for as long as is needed
in order to create an exact replica
in the mind.
Then once that mental image is there,
to let it go, and stay only with the
feeling of the thing that remains,
lingering a while.

Then to let go of that feeling of pine, or zamia resin, 
or koolbardie the magpie, go,
and see what name, if any, arises 
in the will.

He notes, as I do,
that it is easy to let
an associative name arise—what something
may look like is especially tempting 
for us both. 

We stumble through each.
And then I say the existing name—
in English, Noongar if I have it.
Standing in front of it,
or holding it in our hands.

“Spider.”
“Zamia…jiragee.”
“Resin.”
“Tuart.”
“Banksia…bullkarla”
“Pine.”
“Cone.”
“Coastal pigcafe…bayern.” 
“Magpie…koolbardie.”

These are the single words, I realise,
of a longer story—nouns, names.
Nouns need adjectives, verbs, adverbs.
Words need sentences, paragraphs,
stories, poems.

Whether rock, plant, animal, human…
landscapes and ecosystems. All names.

Moving from the earth of it, to the water, 
air and fire.

I try to join the names of Bold Park
and Kings Park—-to go there in looking
and in naming…(re)creating,
(re)newing.

The naming of nature
and the nature of naming.