“Death was not. I lived in a simple drowse:
Hands and hair moved through a dream of wakening blossoms.”

— Theodore Roethke

"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.

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Theodore Roethke 86

American poet 1908–1963

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