monk names

the older i get the more interested i am
in becoming a river. i would like
to choose a fissure in the mountain
to fill with water.
i read somewhere that i can't remember
that in monasteries
they keep lists of all the previous monks' names.
long & unending. centuries 
of sounds used to call one another
in the darkness. stone walls.
i think a river & a name have
more in common than not.
last year i was thinking about renaming myself
for a second time. it felt too difficult though.
i have already had to once 
go around to every window 
& ask if they would never call me dead again.
i don't know how anyone 
keeps the same name for
their whole lives. i know i would 
not make a good monk but i would love
to be renamed like that. to find a place
on a spilling list. 
to hear my fresh word like a tunnel
into the soil & the rocks. i would
sing my new name. i would wake up
before the sun each day
to speak it into the cool air.
i am too wild for a monastery. 
too quiet for the city. too hungry for
our little house in the middle 
of the fields. sometimes, when i feeling
my most melancholy, i give up.
i walk barefoot on the wet earth.
tell the snow, who are just passing through,
"you can call me dead."