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+---
+title: Litany
+genre: verse
+
+dedication: a plant
+
+id: plant
+toc: "Litany for a plant"
+
+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]: one-hundred-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/