Naming
Like a blur of rain on the real world.
And no one denies the great utility
For comptrollers of imperial households,
For quartermaster-sergeants,
For grocer’s assistants,
For museum curators;
For taxonomists and schoolboys,
Pundits and critics.
And if the name becomes the thing,
The rain it raineth every day
And anyhow: could we bear it?
Could we bear the light of a world
Of things without names?
by John Fowles
from Poems
The Ecco Press, 1973