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79 LIFE-FORCE (With acknowledgment to John Donne) Alone on the rubble of earth—all alone— Alive in my body, and blood on the stone— The black amanita, the hydrogen pall Above me—I waken, and now I will crawl For the woundwort to heal me, For leaf and for shoot To feed me; with water I suck from the root Of arum; with shelter I claw from the dust; And with life from the welter To draw as I must; I will wrap me in bindweed And comb out my hair With thorn from the thorn bush, And southward repair Across the burnt meadows, And take to the wild— Oh, sheath of the man-root Beget me with child. ...

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