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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.
Theodore Roethke -
Be sure that whatever you are is you.
Theodore Roethke
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And I walked, I walked through the light air; I moved with the morning.
Theodore Roethke -
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
Theodore Roethke -
Wake the happy words.
Theodore Roethke -
I have come to a still, but not a deep center, A point outside the glittering current; My eyes stare at the bottom of a river, At the irregular stones, iridescent sandgrains, My mind moves in more than one place, In a country half-land, half-water. I am renewed by death, thought of my death, The dry scent of a dying garden in September, The wind fanning the ash of a low fire. What I love is near at hand, Always, in earth and air.
Theodore Roethke -
The damage of teaching: the constant contact with the undeveloped.
Theodore Roethke -
What is madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance?
Theodore Roethke
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Pain wanders through my bones like a lost fire
Theodore Roethke -
I lose and find myself in the long water. I am gathered together once more.
Theodore Roethke -
A mind too active is no mind at all.
Theodore Roethke -
And I rejoiced in being what I was.
Theodore Roethke -
Any fool can take a bad line out of a poem; it takes a real pro to throw out a good line.
Theodore Roethke -
Love begets love. This torment is my joy.
Theodore Roethke
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The body and the soul know how to play. In that dark world where gods have lost their way.
Theodore Roethke -
What falls away is always. And is near.
Theodore Roethke -
Who rise from flesh to spirit know the fall: The word outleaps the world, and light is all.
Theodore Roethke -
By daily dying, I have come to be.
Theodore Roethke -
What we need is more people who specialize in the impossible.
Theodore Roethke -
The poet: would rather eat a heart than a hambone.
Theodore Roethke