Quote

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

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Theodore Roethke
Age: 55 †
Born: 1908
Born: May 25
Died: 1963
Died: August 1
Poet
Teacher
Writer
Saginaw
Michigan
Bird
Immeasurable
Place
Dares
Light
Stops
Live
Immense
Things
Emptiness
Dare
Wings
Beats

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I wish I could find an event that meant as much as simple seeing.
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By daily dying, I have come to be.
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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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A mind too active is no mind at all.
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A terrible violence of creation,A flash into the burning heart of the abominableYet if we wait, unafraid, beyond the fearful instant,The burning lake turns into a forest pool,The fire subsides into rings of water,A sunlit silence.
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I learn by going where I have to go.
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Fear was my father, Father Fear. His look drained the stones.
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We think by feeling. What is there to know?
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I came to love, I came into my own.
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The living all assemble! What's the cue?-- Do what the clumsy partner wants to do!
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The poet: would rather eat a heart than a hambone.
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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.
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All lovers live by longing, and endure: Summon a vision and declare it pure.
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What is madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance?
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I have gone into the waste lonely places
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When I go mad, I call my friends by phone: I am afraid they might think they're alone.
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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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What's important? That which is dug out of books, or out of the guts?
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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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Live in a perpetual great astonishment.
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