What's in a name?

My phone says the dainty white

star-shaped flowers beside the path

are named Fremont’s Deathcamas.

The blue-flowered ones

are Pacific Hound’s Tongue.

“what's in a name?”

Oh much more than scent.

John C Fremont, the explorer

the so-called Pathfinder

has dozens of species named

after him, the avid collector

on his Western expeditions

in California, Nevada and Oregon.

Counties, cities, even mountains

are named after him and 

his frequent guide, Kit Carson.

Perhaps there should also be

some other locations named

after something else they collected,

murders and massacres. Like the

Sacramento River Massacre.

of close to a thousand people.

Participant Kit Carson later

called it “a perfect butchery”

Perhaps a monument to

the Klamath Lake Massacre,

or the Sutter Buttes Massacre.

The bright gleaming leaves

on the viridian underbrush

are fresh sprouting poison.

-oak. Like the golden

oak leafs that Army majors

wear on their collars. Until

they’re promoted to lieutenant

colonel. Then they go silver.

Like Colonel Korn, who was

assistant to Colonel Cathcart

in Catch-22. They decided

that only soldiers who

don’t ask questions

are allowed to ask questions.

You see a lot of interesting

forbs and sedges, shrubs

and flowers, on King Mountain.

And think about what's in a name.