[Intro - whispered over celesta]
Twice upon a time, the rain
wrote every living name again.

[Verse 1]
Pica pica stole the echoes,
hid them in a sunken bell;
Meles meles woke as Meles—
something missing, hard to tell.
In his vault of milk-white paper,
where the roots came through the floor,
every creature kept its body;
every name was one word poor.

[Verse 2 - dry, nimble narration]
Rattus rattus ate the footnotes,
left the titles neatly stacked.
“Nothing missing,” said the clerk,
“if the missing isn't tracked.”
Bubo bubo called the hearing;
Vulpes vulpes took the stand:
“If a word repeats exactly,
strike the surplus from the land.”

[Chorus - warm harmonies, answering echoes]
Say it once to find the doorway,
say it twice to turn the key.
One to call the kin around you,
one to say which beast you mean.
Pica pica, Meles meles,
ink and feather, tooth and bone;
let the word come back to answer—
no name has to sleep alone.
(Alone.)
(Alone.)

[Verse 3]
Cinclus cinclus searched the river
with a white star on his throat;
found the bell below the millwheel,
heard the names inside its note.
Sprattus sprattus, silver commas,
shoaled around the broken spell;
Lutra lutra towed the vowels
from the bottom of the bell.

[Interlude - gathering Latin patter]
Bufo bufo, damp recital;
Dama dama, velvet knees;
Grus grus, folded like a letter;
Cygnus cygnus, sign here please.
Capreolus capreolus—
every hoof a parenthesis.

[Bridge - hushed, strings slowly rising]
Then the oak leaned through the window:
“Who forbade our names to ring?”
And the beech unbuttoned winter,
and the willow slipped its string.
“You have made a law of letters,
you have made a fence of air;
we were woods before your ledger,
we were growing everywhere.”

[Spoken - owl, precise and officious]
By Article twenty-three point four,
your echo must remain outside.

[Verse 4 - low voices, wooden percussion entering]
The oak put down a root instead
and split the margin open wide.
No oak may be an oak twice named,
no beech repeat the word it claimed;
but roots beneath the court conspire,
and every branch becomes a choir.

[Tree Choir - slow, deep, building]
Quercus quercus, root and crown;
Fagus fagus, write it down;
Salix salix, bend the law—
give us back the leaves you tore.
(Quercus quercus.)
(Fagus fagus.)
(Salix salix.)

[Breakdown - badger, softly spoken]
Same spelling.
Different rank.

[Verse 5 - spacious, tender]
Meles laid his pen aside;
the ink began to bud.
Rattus spat a small confession
on the census in the mud.
Pica paid her debt in feathers,
let the black snow softly fall;
every leaf became a letter,
every tree outgrew the hall.

[Final Chorus - full ensemble, Latin names overlapping]
Say it once to find the doorway,
say it twice to turn the key.
Let the trees come through the ceiling,
let their shadows wander free.
Cinclus cinclus, Rattus rattus,
root and river, tooth and bone;
let the word come back to answer—
no name has to sleep alone.
(Pica pica, Meles meles.)
(Cinclus cinclus, Rattus rattus.)
(Quercus quercus, Fagus fagus.)
(Sprattus sprattus, Salix salix.)

[Coda - sudden hush, a very low voice]
Gorilla gorilla gorilla.

[Spoken - owl]
That is one too many.

[Spoken - gorilla]
Check the subspecies.

[Outro - intimate, percussion fading into rain]
Twice upon a time, the rain
wrote every living name again.
(Again.)
(Again.)