Quote

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.

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
Begins
Shadow
Meet
Dark
Eye
Desire
Deepening
Light
Darker
Time
Shade

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Long live the weeds that overwhelm My narrow vegetable realm! The bitter rock, the barren soil That force the son of man to toil All things unholy, marred by curse, The ugly of the universe.
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I am overwhelmed by the beautiful disorder of poetry, the eternal virginity of words.
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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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By daily dying, I have come to be.
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A too explicit elucidation in education destroys much of the pleasure of learning. There should be room for sly hinters, masters of suggestion.
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I lose and find myself in the long water. I am gathered together once more.
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What falls away is always. And is near.
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I came to love, I came into my own.
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The poet: would rather eat a heart than a hambone.
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Being, not doing, is my first joy.
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What is madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance?
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Love is not love until love's vulnerable.
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What's important? That which is dug out of books, or out of the guts?
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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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So much of adolescence is an ill-defined dying, An intolerable waiting, A longing for another place and time, Another condition.
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Art is our defense against hysteria and death.
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Nothing would give up life: Even the dirt keeps breathing a small breath.
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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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How body from spirit slowly does unwind, until we are pure spirit at the end.
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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.
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