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---
title: Litany for a plant
genre: verse
project:
title: Autocento of the breakfast table
css: 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/
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