Back to Spring 2004

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 Jeanne Larsen
A Garden Without Chlorophyll

is no garden at all.
And yet such things live,

smooth ghost-flowers shinning,
fireless candles in coves

in the woods: coralroot, beechdrops.
Indian pipes. Pinkish or white,

dull yellow, red-tinged, or brown-
all colors but green.

Lavender, even, the scaly
leaved cancer-root, and in warm

stands of pine, scarce
rosy pigmy pipes loose

their strong smell of violets.
These untamable species

are saprophytes, parasites, symbionts maybe,
feasting on rot or what's stolen,

or strangely in intimate
partnership. Opening

uncanny slick companies
of bells. Standing

erect. Naked.
Dependent. Making gardens

unordered, these, your inhuman
and deviant kin.