A Common Name for Everything

Book excerpt: I. Have you been to the place? Night travel -- Have you been to the place? -- A study -- Aurora borealis -- My mother names her inner state -- The mammoth -- No heron -- Overwintered -- Fruiting bodies -- Love song in a small place -- II. Little here, little now. A guidebook with common phrases -- Apples -- One problem with maps -- Garlic -- What we tell children about animals -- The rural pantheon -- Nearer, my bog, to thee -- Namer of lakes -- Declared nuisances -- The place and the whale -- From above a lambing -- III. Earth-things. Some conditions -- Leaving pangaea -- To consider the tree crab -- Views from ruminant creatures -- My favorite human smile -- We are taking the trees -- A child tries to extinguish the sun -- The subtle animal -- The mountain -- The prayers of sheep -- IV. Beginnings. The propagule -- Regeneration (acornal, coralic, human) -- An unfunded study of milking and the moon -- Birth story -- An unfunded study of the afterbirth -- Arrival at the river Jordan -- The landing -- Renovation -- A small and unsuccessful reckoning -- The afterlion -- The next season.