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+---
+title: Litany for a plant
+id: plant
+genre: verse
+
+project:
+    title: Autocento of the breakfast table
+    class: autocento
+...
+
+I need a plant.  I need a thing \
+to take care of.  I need \
+a little green brownspotted \
+[blackdirt][] growing \
+quietness.  I need a sunlit \
+dawn knowing my name filtered \
+through a [thin green window][]. \
+I need chlorophyll \
+working its [magic][] on beams of \
+grassmade early morning dewdrop \
+sweetmaking green.  I need \
+the dark earth sucking water \
+from a black crevice \
+its black magic churning \
+wormilled rockturned starblind \
+darkness and cold into \
+[the opposite of dust][].  I need the heat \
+to blind me.  I need the dumb making \
+to charge my coldened blood.  I need \
+the dropturned leaves to turn again \
+their [faces to the windblown sun][]. \
+I need millions of tiny years \
+summed up and burning out some unknown \
+new growth into the air.  I need four \
+hundred feet of dark red gnarled wood \
+and needles glistening wetly on goldheaded \
+branches hoisting themselves \
+to the sky.  I need ten strong men \
+to fail to bring you down.  Old one \
+I need the peace that comes with knowing \
+something sacred holds still \
+in the world.  I need your green tongues \
+[of flame to lick at old wounds][] \
+stitching us together away from ourselves. \
+I need your brownbranching grasp \
+to keep me from drifting off \
+into [unknowing terrible sleep][].  I need \
+[to know the snake][] hanging \
+from your branches.  I need to watch \
+the dropping of flesh massful \
+onto the ground from a height.  I need \
+the gnawer at your root to strike \
+a vein to quicken old brown stone \
+to movement.  I need jeweleyed venom \
+barking new greennesses into the bark. \
+I need a knocker of dark secrets hidden \
+in the dark bark hiding a smallstone \
+smoldering pearl in the knot.  I need \
+that [pearl held out in a hand][] like an offering. \
+I need the hand to be a plant's hand.
+
+I need a plant.  I need a growing \
+growler [groaning][] toward heat and air. \
+I need a green thin stem surprisingly strong \
+holding up the weight of a plain \
+of fallow [greennesses of creases and caresses][] \
+of tiny worldmaking hardworking grandeur. \
+I need a singer of life crying \
+forward into old roads covered over \
+by dead trees.  I need the rasping of root \
+in dirt.  I need the unfurling of fiddleheads \
+to sing forth a new symphony.  I need \
+fruits swelling large for the harvest. \
+I need yellow light shining through white bark. \
+I need juicecrush flowing waterlike \
+through valleys percolating up \
+through the ground.  I need springs bubbling sap \
+into cabins of wood fought for by labor. \
+I need snow on the ground with shoots \
+dotting the melting patches.  I need two \
+leaves on a thin stalk shivering \
+in [moonlight][].  I need robinsong warbling \
+over the heads of small seeds sprouting \
+to enliven their growth.  I need rings \
+of woody material widening to push \
+the ground out of their way.  I need \
+new greennesses pushing out from \
+the brown dark bark gnarled.  I \
+need the robin to build its songfilled \
+nest in a [branchcrotch][].  I need \
+the fecundity of fungi on the branches. \
+I need quiet of the sunlight shooting \
+through thousands of branched leaves \
+quivering.  [I need whisper at dawn.][] \
+I need burrows underground foxholes. \
+I need duff layers eaten through \
+by worms.  I need brooks murmuring \
+through crooks of roots.  I need small \
+[fish swimming][] in their schools at \
+midnight.  I need oldnesses giving way \
+[to youngnesses giving way to oldnesses][]. \
+I need dapplegray yellowshot ashbark. \
+I need the crunch of dead leaves underfoot. \
+I need [snowquiet deadbranch][] mourning. \
+I need those [purple mountains majesty][]. \
+I need a walk between trees in the dark. \
+I need that moment when stopping to rest \
+it suddenly seems that all the weary \
+[forestroads][] in all their meandering come \
+[to rest their heads][] at my astonished \
+feet, none of them needing more than me.
+
+[blackdirt]: building.html
+[thin green window]: window.html
+[magic]: cereal.html
+[to rest their heads]: riptide_memory.html
+[forestroads]: http://www.bartleby.com/119/1.html
+[purple mountains majesty]: http://www.wrensworld.com/purpmount.htm
+[snowquiet deadbranch]: 100-lines.html
+[to youngnesses giving way to oldnesses]: about-the-author.html
+[fish swimming]: proverbs.html
+[I need whisper at dawn.]: apollo11.html
+[branchcrotch]: epigraph.html
+[moonlight]: finding-the-lion.html
+[greennesses of creases and caresses]: the-sea_the-beach.html
+[groaning]: feedingtheraven.html
+[pearl held out in a hand]: roughgloves.html
+[to know the snake]: ouroboros_memory.html
+[unknowing terrible sleep]: in-bed.html
+[of flame to lick at old wounds]: fire.html
+[faces to the windblown sun]: no-nothing.html
+[the opposite of dust]: https://samofthetenthousandthings.wordpress.com/2012/09/08/charles-wright-reads-james-wright-the-journey-audio-poem/