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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.
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