I have long believed that the voiceless things in the world around us – the trees, the stones, for example – are aware of us, of our movement among them. This morning, sitting at my desk at work in my home office, I watched the birds in the grass outside and smiled at their antics, and then I found myself watching the weeping willow tree a dozen yards from the door. Leafless and still, it seemed to be looking back at me. And for the first time, a question arose: do the trees and the rocks and the other silent things out there have names? I don’t mean names as…