"The Shape of the Fire," ll. 73-77
The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948)
Context: Death was not. I lived in a simple drowse:
Hands and hair moved through a dream of wakening blossoms.
Rain sweetened the cave and the dove still called;
The flowers leaned on themselves, the flowers in hollows;
And love, love sang toward.
Theodore Roethke: Living
Theodore Roethke was American poet. Explore interesting quotes on living.
Theodore Roethke:
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“All lovers live by longing, and endure:
Summon a vision and declare it pure.”
"Four for Sir John Davies," ll. 73-78
The Waking (1953)
Context: Dante attained the purgatorial hill,
Trembled at hidden virtue without flaw,
Shook with a mighty power beyond his will, —
Did Beatrice deny what Dante saw?
All lovers live by longing, and endure:
Summon a vision and declare it pure.
"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.)
“Poetry is not a mere shuffling of dead words or even a corralling of live ones.”
Source: Poetry and Craft (1965), p. 89
“I study the lives on a leaf: the little
Sleepers, numb nudgers in cold dimensions.”
"The Minimal," ll. 1-2
The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948)
"Moss-Gathering," ll. 9-13
The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948)
"Plaint," ll. 13-16
Words for the Wind (1958)
“A lively understandable spirit
Once entertained you.
It will come again.
Be still.
Wait.”
The Lost Son," ll. 168-172
The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948)