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.