You love the names and lament
your inability to remember them:
Quercus durata, Arctostaphylos viscida, Pinus sabiniana.

When we are wandering among the serpentine outcrops
or coast range volcanics,
you often ask me for names.

Tokens of knowledge
or incantations.
Lineages revealed or concealed
depending on the taxonomy.

In Washington it was easy.
We were a close-knit family with few members:
Rubus spectabilis, Acer macrophyllum, Trientalis latifolia.

Here now in California
I have come to love the hills covered in chamise,
a sea of small flowers emerging in spring,
and the constancy of dark-leaved, prickly bushes.

Yet I must admit
I don’t know all of the latin litany.
So many names, faces and families.
To know requires much evidence:
leaves, flowers, fruits.

Some days I wish I knew what Linnaeus would call them
all the wee plants.
Other days, when the serpentine rocks radiate heat,
my goal becomes more modest,
to crawl inside a manzanita bush
and fall asleep.