Clicking syllables

Lafayette Street in Salem, Mass. An example of the '‘high-tunneled effects’' of the American elm (Ulmus americana) once common in New England towns and cities (colorized postcard, 1910) before Dutch elm disease ravaged these beautiful trees.

— Photo by Mlane78212

“Your grandfather and I rode bikes through
an alley of trees and called their names
to each other, Latin spindling into the wind—
            Acer saccharum
                        Betula populifolia
            Pinus strobus
Syllables clicked from our mouths
like baseball cards clothes-pinned
to the bikes’ bright spokes….’’

— From “On the Day Before You Were Born,’’ by New Hampshire poet and teacher Lin Illingworth