Theodore Roethke Quotes
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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
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All lovers live by longing, and endure: Summon a vision and declare it pure.
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The soul has many motions, body one.
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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.
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Nothing would give up life: Even the dirt keeps breathing a small breath.
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Fear was my father, Father Fear. His look drained the stones.
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I came to love, I came into my own.
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I long for the imperishable quiet at the heart of form.
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Those who are willing to be vulnerable move among mysteries.
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I lose and find myself in the long water. I am gathered together once more.
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The damage of teaching: the constant contact with the undeveloped.
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Should we say the self, once perceived, becomes the soul?
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Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light.
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I teach my sighs to lengthen into songs.
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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.
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Teach as an old fishing guide takes out a beginner.
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The self says, I am; The heart says, I am less; The spirit says, you are Nothing.
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What's important? That which is dug out of books, or out of the guts?
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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.
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In a dark time, the eye begins to see I meet my shadow in the deepening shade...Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
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I came where the river Ran over stones; My ears knew An early joy. And all the waters Of all the streams Sang in my veins That summer day.
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What have I done, dear God, to deserve this perpetual feeling that I'm almost ready to begin something really new?
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In a dark time, the mind begins to see.
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And I rejoiced in being what I was.