The visible exhausts me. I am dissolved in shadow. Theodore Roethke More Quotes by Theodore Roethke More Quotes From Theodore Roethke The body and the soul know how to play Theodore Roethke souldarkplay What falls away is always. And is near. Theodore Roethke fall A mind too active is no mind at all. Theodore Roethke intelligenceintuitionmind And I walked, I walked through the light air; I moved with the morning. Theodore Roethke lightjourneymorning The poet: would rather eat a heart than a hambone. Theodore Roethke poetheart 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 flyingrealsuffering Love begets love. This torment is my joy. Theodore Roethke tormentjoylove Civilization is over-rated, but there isn't much else. Theodore Roethke civilizationculture The indignity of it!- Theodore Roethke lovelyweedrose 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 motherboyshands Fear was my father, Father Fear. His look drained the stones. Theodore Roethke fearfatherlooks Pain wanders through my bones like a lost fire Theodore Roethke bonespainfire 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 wallsummerdark I lose and find myself in the long water. I am gathered together once more. Theodore Roethke togetherwaterlong 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 firelakesheart 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-outcuttingwater 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 lightwhitewater Should we say the self, once perceived, becomes the soul? Theodore Roethke self-respectself-esteemsoul What's important? That which is dug out of books, or out of the guts? Theodore Roethke importanceimportantbook The damage of teaching: the constant contact with the undeveloped. Theodore Roethke contactdamageteaching
