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<h1 class="title">Litany for a plant</h1>
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<p><span class="line">I need a plant. I need a thing</span><span class="line">to take care of. I need</span><span class="line">a little green brownspotted</span><span class="line"><a href="building.html">blackdirt</a> growing</span><span class="line">quietness. I need a sunlit</span><span class="line">dawn knowing my name filtered</span><span class="line">through a <a href="window.html">thin green window</a>.</span><span class="line">I need chlorophyll</span><span class="line">working its <a href="cereal.html">magic</a> on beams of</span><span class="line">grassmade early morning dewdrop</span><span class="line">sweetmaking green. I need</span><span class="line">the dark earth sucking water</span><span class="line">from a black crevice</span><span class="line">its black magic churning</span><span class="line">wormilled rockturned starblind</span><span class="line">darkness and cold into</span><span class="line"><a href="https://samofthetenthousandthings.wordpress.com/2012/09/08/charles-wright-reads-james-wright-the-journey-audio-poem/">the opposite of dust</a>. I need the heat</span><span class="line">to blind me. I need the dumb making</span><span class="line">to charge my coldened blood. I need</span><span class="line">the dropturned leaves to turn again</span><span class="line">their <a href="no-nothing.html">faces to the windblown sun</a>.</span><span class="line">I need millions of tiny years</span><span class="line">summed up and burning out some unknown</span><span class="line">new growth into the air. I need four</span><span class="line">hundred feet of dark red gnarled wood</span><span class="line">and needles glistening wetly on goldheaded</span><span class="line">branches hoisting themselves</span><span class="line">to the sky. I need ten strong men</span><span class="line">to fail to bring you down. Old one</span><span class="line">I need the peace that comes with knowing</span><span class="line">something sacred holds still</span><span class="line">in the world. I need your green tongues</span><span class="line"><a href="fire.html">of flame to lick at old wounds</a></span><span class="line">stitching us together away from ourselves.</span><span class="line">I need your brownbranching grasp</span><span class="line">to keep me from drifting off</span><span class="line">into <a href="in-bed.html">unknowing terrible sleep</a>. I need</span><span class="line"><a href="ouroboros_memory.html">to know the snake</a> hanging</span><span class="line">from your branches. I need to watch</span><span class="line">the dropping of flesh massful</span><span class="line">onto the ground from a height. I need</span><span class="line">the gnawer at your root to strike</span><span class="line">a vein to quicken old brown stone</span><span class="line">to movement. I need jeweleyed venom</span><span class="line">barking new greennesses into the bark.</span><span class="line">I need a knocker of dark secrets hidden</span><span class="line">in the dark bark hiding a smallstone</span><span class="line">smoldering pearl in the knot. I need</span><span class="line">that <a href="roughgloves.html">pearl held out in a hand</a> like an offering.</span><span class="line">I need the hand to be a plant’s hand.</span></p>
<p><span class="line">I need a plant. I need a growing</span><span class="line">growler <a href="feedingtheraven.html">groaning</a> toward heat and air.</span><span class="line">I need a green thin stem surprisingly strong</span><span class="line">holding up the weight of a plain</span><span class="line">of fallow <a href="the-sea_the-beach.html">greennesses of creases and caresses</a></span><span class="line">of tiny worldmaking hardworking grandeur.</span><span class="line">I need a singer of life crying</span><span class="line">forward into old roads covered over</span><span class="line">by dead trees. I need the rasping of root</span><span class="line">in dirt. I need the unfurling of fiddleheads</span><span class="line">to sing forth a new symphony. I need</span><span class="line">fruits swelling large for the harvest.</span><span class="line">I need yellow light shining through white bark.</span><span class="line">I need juicecrush flowing waterlike</span><span class="line">through valleys percolating up</span><span class="line">through the ground. I need springs bubbling sap</span><span class="line">into cabins of wood fought for by labor.</span><span class="line">I need snow on the ground with shoots</span><span class="line">dotting the melting patches. I need two</span><span class="line">leaves on a thin stalk shivering</span><span class="line">in <a href="finding-the-lion.html">moonlight</a>. I need robinsong warbling</span><span class="line">over the heads of small seeds sprouting</span><span class="line">to enliven their growth. I need rings</span><span class="line">of woody material widening to push</span><span class="line">the ground out of their way. I need</span><span class="line">new greennesses pushing out from</span><span class="line">the brown dark bark gnarled. I</span><span class="line">need the robin to build its songfilled</span><span class="line">nest in a <a href="epigraph.html">branchcrotch</a>. I need</span><span class="line">the fecundity of fungi on the branches.</span><span class="line">I need quiet of the sunlight shooting</span><span class="line">through thousands of branched leaves</span><span class="line">quivering. <a href="apollo11.html">I need whisper at dawn.</a></span><span class="line">I need burrows underground foxholes.</span><span class="line">I need duff layers eaten through</span><span class="line">by worms. I need brooks murmuring</span><span class="line">through crooks of roots. I need small</span><span class="line"><a href="proverbs.html">fish swimming</a> in their schools at</span><span class="line">midnight. I need oldnesses giving way</span><span class="line"><a href="about-the-author.html">to youngnesses giving way to oldnesses</a>.</span><span class="line">I need dapplegray yellowshot ashbark.</span><span class="line">I need the crunch of dead leaves underfoot.</span><span class="line">I need <a href="100-lines.html">snowquiet deadbranch</a> mourning.</span><span class="line">I need those <a href="http://www.wrensworld.com/purpmount.htm">purple mountains majesty</a>.</span><span class="line">I need a walk between trees in the dark.</span><span class="line">I need that moment when stopping to rest</span><span class="line">it suddenly seems that all the weary</span><span class="line"><a href="http://www.bartleby.com/119/1.html">forestroads</a> in all their meandering come</span><span class="line"><a href="riptide_memory.html">to rest their heads</a> at my astonished</span><span class="line">feet, none of them needing more than me.</span></p>
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