What’s in a Name?*

In the realm of notions,
where word and meaning clash,
we ask:

Is it the thing that gives the name its shape,
or the name that shapes the thing?

Cratylus, with his lips pressed tight to truth,
says a word must be the echo
of what it is called—
a perfect match
an interwining dance
between tongue and world.
A name like fire,
hot and alive,
burning its essence into the air,
so pure,
it cannot be anything else.

But Heraclitus, shaking his head,
would say, “The river is never the same.”
For what is a name,
but a moment held still,
a frame around a shifting, endless tide?
Do we grasp the river’s essence
by calling it water?
Or is it the river that slips past
our every attempt at definition?

Also can a name be both
true and false, as Socrates adds?

We stand on the edge of language,
lost in the noise
of words that try to mean,
but never quite can.
Every name,
a hand trying to capture a shadow.
Every connotation,
a fleeting attempt at grasping
what manifests beneath the heavens.

Who’s to say
that which is named
is only a thing in itself,
but a thing in relation
to what it’s called,
to who calls it,
to when and where and why.

A name is born of our mind
but it is not ours to keep.
It can slip and slide,
leaving us in wonder—

What is a rose,
if not the air that carries it,
the voice that speaks it,
the thorn that guards it,
or the label that follows?

*The Cratylus of Plato