The Name Poem by David Wagoner

When a man or a woman died, something of theirs,
some token—a beaded belt, a pair of moccasins,
a necklace—would be left beside the path
where a hunting party, returning, would see it
and know that name was dead now.
They would remember how to say it,
but not at the campfire, not in stories,
not whispered in the night to anyone else,
but only to themselves.
Then, after years, when the right one had been born,
they would hold that child above the earth
to the four directions and speak the name again.