Theodore Roethke: Trending quotes (page 2)

“Snail, snail, glister me forward,
Bird, soft-sigh me home,
Worm, be with me.
This is my hard time.”

Theodore Roethke

"The Lost Son," ll. 8-11
The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948)
Context: I shook the softening chalk of my bones,
Saying,
Snail, snail, glister me forward,
Bird, soft-sigh me home,
Worm, be with me.
This is my hard time.

Home , Bird , Time

“Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.”

Theodore Roethke The Waking

The Waking (1953), The Waking

Tree , Light

“And everything comes to One,
As we dance on, dance on, dance on.”

Theodore Roethke book The Far Field

Once More, the Round," ll. 11-12
The Far Field (1964)
Context: p>And I dance with William Blake
For love, for Love's sake;And everything comes to One,
As we dance on, dance on, dance on.</p

Dance

“Voice, come out of the silence.
Say something.
Appear in the form of a spider
Or a moth beating the curtain.

Tell me:
Which is the way I take;
Out of what door` do I go,
Where and to whom?

Dark hollows said, lee to the wind,
The moon said, back of an eel,
The salt said, look by the sea,
Your tears are not enough praise,
You will find no comfort here,
In the kingdom of bang and blab.”

Theodore Roethke

The Lost Son, ll. 24 - 35
The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948)

Appearance , Sea , Way , Tear

“The night wind rises. Does my father live?
Dark hangs upon the waters of the soul.
My flesh is breathing slower than a wall.
Love alters all. Unblood my instinct, love.”

Theodore Roethke

"The Renewal," ll. 7-10
Words for the Wind (1958)

Love

“Like witches they flew along rows,
Keeping creation at ease”

Theodore Roethke

"Frau Bauman, Frau Schmidt, and Frau Schwartze," ll. 19-25
The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948)
Context: Like witches they flew along rows,
Keeping creation at ease;
With a tendril for needle
They sewed up the air with a stem;
They teased out the seed that the cold kept asleep, —
All the coils, loops and whorls.
They trellised the sun; they plotted for more than themselves.

“I'll seek my own meekness.
What grace I have is enough.
The lost have their own pace.
The stalks ask something else.
What the grave says,
The nest denies.”

Theodore Roethke

"Unfold! Unfold!," ll. 59-64
Praise to the End! (1951)

“There's time enough.
Behold, in the lout's eye, love.”

Theodore Roethke

"I Cry, Love! Love!," ll. 33-39
Praise to the End! (1951)
Context: Beginnings start without shade,
Thinner than minnows.
The live grass whirls with the sun,
Feet run over the simple stones,
There's time enough.
Behold, in the lout's eye, love.

Love , Time

“Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
The shapes a bright container can contain!”

Theodore Roethke

"I Knew a Woman," ll. 1 - 4
Words for the Wind (1958)
Context: I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
The shapes a bright container can contain!

Way

“But who would count eternity in days?
These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:
(I measure time by how a body sways.)”

Theodore Roethke

"I Knew a Woman," ll. 22-28
Words for the Wind (1958)
Context: Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:
I'm martyr to a motion not my own;
What's freedom for? To know eternity.
I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.
But who would count eternity in days?
These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:
(I measure time by how a body sways.)

Way , Learning , Time

“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 book The Far Field

"The Abyss"
The Far Field (1964)
Context: 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.

Fear , Silence , Water , Waiting

“My truths are all foreknown,
This anguish self-revealed.
I’m naked to the bone,
With nakedness my shield.”

Theodore Roethke

"Open House," ll. 7 - 11
Open House (1941)

“Poetry is not a mere shuffling of dead words or even a corralling of live ones.”

Theodore Roethke

Source: Poetry and Craft (1965), p. 89

Dead

“They teased out the seed that the cold kept asleep, —
All the coils, loops and whorls.
They trellised the sun; they plotted for more than themselves.”

Theodore Roethke

"Frau Bauman, Frau Schmidt, and Frau Schwartze," ll. 19-25
The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948)
Context: Like witches they flew along rows,
Keeping creation at ease;
With a tendril for needle
They sewed up the air with a stem;
They teased out the seed that the cold kept asleep, —
All the coils, loops and whorls.
They trellised the sun; they plotted for more than themselves.

Sun

“Too much reality can be a dazzle, a surfeit;
Too close immediacy an exhaustion”

Theodore Roethke book The Far Field

"The Abyss"
The Far Field (1964)

Reality

“What we need are more people who specialize in the impossible.”

Theodore Roethke

People

“Deep in their roots all flowers keep the light.”

Theodore Roethke

Deep , Beauty , Peaceful , Flowers

“By daily dying, I have come to be.”