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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 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. Great Nature has another thing to do To you and me, so take the lively air, And, lovely, learn by going where to go. This shaking keeps me steady. I should know. What falls away is always. And is near. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I learn by going where I have to go.
Theodore Roethke
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To follow the drops sliding from a lifting oar, Head up, while the rower breathes, and the small boat drifts quietly shoreward.
Theodore Roethke -
The stones were sharp, The wind came at my back; Walking along the highway, Mincing like a cat.
Theodore Roethke -
O Lord, may I never want to look good. O Jesus, may I always read it all: out loud and the very way it should be. May I never look at the other findings until I have come to my own true conclusions: May I care for the least of the young: and become aware of the one poem that each may have written; may I be aware of what each thing is, delighted with form, and wary of the false comparison; may I never use the word "brilliant."
Theodore Roethke -
Live in a perpetual great astonishment.
Theodore Roethke -
I always felt mean, jogging back over the logging road,As if I had broken the natural order of things in that swampland;Disturbed some rhythm, old and of vast importance,By pulling off flesh from the living planet;As if I had committed, against the whole scheme of life, a desecration.
Theodore Roethke -
The living all assemble! What's the cue?-- Do what the clumsy partner wants to do!
Theodore Roethke
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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.
Theodore Roethke -
The fields stretch out in long unbroken rows. We walk aware of what is far and close. Here distance is familiar as a friend. The feud we kept with space comes to an end.
Theodore Roethke -
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go.
Theodore Roethke -
The soul has many motions, body one.
Theodore Roethke -
But when I breath with the birds, The spirit of wrath becomes the spirit of blessings, And the dead begin from their dark to sing in my sleep.
Theodore Roethke -
And soon a branch, part of a hidden scene,The leafy mind, that long was tightly furled,Will turn its private substance into green,And young shoots spread upon our inner world.
Theodore Roethke
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Being, not doing, is my first joy.
Theodore Roethke -
I long for the imperishable quiet at the heart of form.
Theodore Roethke -
Should we say the self, once perceived, becomes the soul?
Theodore Roethke -
In this place of light: he dares to live Who stops being a bird, yet beats his wings Against the immense immeasurable emptiness of things.
Theodore Roethke -
God bless the roots! Body and soul are one.
Theodore Roethke -
You must believe: a poem is a holy thing - a good poem, that is. The poem, even a short time after being written, seems no miracle; unwritten, it seems something beyond the capacity of the gods.
Theodore Roethke
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Teach as an old fishing guide takes out a beginner.
Theodore Roethke -
Nothing would give up life: Even the dirt keeps breathing a small breath.
Theodore Roethke -
I came to love, I came into my own.
Theodore Roethke -
All lovers live by longing, and endure: Summon a vision and declare it pure.
Theodore Roethke