Poetry Sunday: No Name by Emily Berry

Scrolling through a collection of poems, looking for one to feature in this week's post, I came across this one that I had never heard of by a poet with whom I was unfamiliar. I was intrigued by the poem's name and I read on. I liked what I read and so here it is without explication or commentary. I hope you like it, too. 

No Name

by Emily Berry

What can I tell you? It was a summer that seemed to be

making history — their personal history — almost before

it began, and they stood back slightly, still in it, but

observing it, saying “the summer this,” “the summer that,”

all the while it was going on. They became obsessed with

a fountain, for example, one they walked past each day,

how abundantly it would reach upwards and yet be pouring

back down itself the whole time — all winter this fountain

had been dry, not saying a word. What more can I tell you?

Oh, everything — like how they would walk home in

the evenings when the light was soft, anything bad sliding

off them, and they would feel owned, completely owned,

in a good way, by the air, which would touch them constantly,

sometimes urgently, sometimes lightly, just to let them know

it was there, and they would think maybe this is what being

alive is, when they saw how complicated a tree was and how

it wanted them looking at it and saying this, how the color

of a particular flower at this particular moment was redder

even than the life force, whatever that is, if you could open

it up and get right down inside it, if you could put your mouth

to it and become as red as that rose even, it was still redder

than that, and they wouldn’t know what to do with themselves

so they wouldn’t do anything except listen to the songs in their

heads which were sad ones like nearly all good songs and watch

this feeling rolling in, sunshine or rain, we don’t know yet,

it’s a good one, it’s the best one, though it has no name.