Art is the means we have of undoing the damage of haste. It's what everything else isn't. Theodore Roethke More Quotes by Theodore Roethke More Quotes From Theodore Roethke The body and the soul know how to play Theodore Roethke soul dark play What falls away is always. And is near. Theodore Roethke fall A mind too active is no mind at all. Theodore Roethke intelligence intuition mind And I walked, I walked through the light air; I moved with the morning. Theodore Roethke light journey morning The poet: would rather eat a heart than a hambone. Theodore Roethke poet heart I can't go on flying apart just for those who want the benefit of a few verbal kicks. My God, do you know what poems like that cost? They're not written vicariously: they come out of actual suffering, real madness. Theodore Roethke flying real suffering Love begets love. This torment is my joy. Theodore Roethke torment joy love Civilization is over-rated, but there isn't much else. Theodore Roethke civilization culture The indignity of it!- Theodore Roethke lovely weed rose My Papa's Waltz: The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother's countenance Could not unfrown itself. The hand that held my wrist Was battered on one knuckle; At every step you missed My right ear scraped a buckle. You beat time on my head With a palm caked hard by dirt, Then waltzed me off to bed Still clinging to your shirt. Theodore Roethke mother boys hands Fear was my father, Father Fear. His look drained the stones. Theodore Roethke fear father looks Pain wanders through my bones like a lost fire Theodore Roethke bones pain fire What's madness but nobility of soul At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire! I know the purity of pure despair, My shadow pinned against a sweating wall, That place among the rocks--is it a cave, Or winding path? The edge is what I have........ ....... Dark,dark my light, and darker my desire. My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly, Keeps buzzing at the sill. ~From "The Waking" by Theodore Roethke Theodore Roethke wall summer dark I lose and find myself in the long water. I am gathered together once more. Theodore Roethke together water long A terrible violence of creation,A flash into the burning heart of the abominable;Yet if we wait, unafraid, beyond the fearful instant,The burning lake turns into a forest pool,The fire subsides into rings of water,A sunlit silence. Theodore Roethke fire lakes heart I can hear, underground, that sucking and sobbing, In my veins, in my bones I feel it,- The small water seeping upward, The tight grains parting at last. When sprouts break out, Slippery as fish, I quail, lean to beginnings, sheath-wet. Theodore Roethke break-out cutting water I learned not to fear infinity, The far field, the windy cliffs of forever, The dying of time in the white light of tomorrow, The wheel turning away from itself, The sprawl of the wave, The on-coming water. Theodore Roethke light white water Should we say the self, once perceived, becomes the soul? Theodore Roethke self-respect self-esteem soul What's important? That which is dug out of books, or out of the guts? Theodore Roethke importance important book The damage of teaching: the constant contact with the undeveloped. Theodore Roethke contact damage teaching
