Last year, balanced on the knife of spring,
I found a craggy, pinkish bud whose name
I’d never learned. Its fleshy spikes became
a riddle, wild and deep, a nameless thing
that I took home and painted. Done, I hung
the painting on my wall so every day
I’d pass and pause and pluck that shivering string:
Here’s something you don’t know, which thrilled the way
a feeling thrills because you do not know
its name. A year went by. This afternoon
the bush was loud with frantic, orange-frilled
detonations. Wild azaleas. They glowed
with naming, becoming song, and to their tune
I buried something sweet that naming killed.