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All lovers live by longing, and endure: Summon a vision and declare it pure.

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
Live
Summon
Declare
Longing
Endure
Lovers
Pure
Vision

More quotes by Theodore Roethke

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How body from spirit slowly does unwind, until we are pure spirit at the end.
Theodore Roethke
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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
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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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The stones were sharp, The wind came at my back Walking along the highway, Mincing like a cat.
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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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Nothing would give up life: Even the dirt keeps breathing a small breath.
Theodore Roethke
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By daily dying, I have come to be.
Theodore Roethke
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Pain wanders through my bones like a lost fire
Theodore Roethke
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And I walked, I walked through the light air I moved with the morning.
Theodore Roethke
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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.
Theodore Roethke
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I learn by going where I have to go.
Theodore Roethke
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When I go mad, I call my friends by phone: I am afraid they might think they're alone.
Theodore Roethke
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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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Live in a perpetual great astonishment.
Theodore Roethke
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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.
Theodore Roethke
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I came to love, I came into my own.
Theodore Roethke
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Time marks us while we are marking time.
Theodore Roethke
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The self says, I am The heart says, I am less The spirit says, you are Nothing.
Theodore Roethke
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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.
Theodore Roethke
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I lose and find myself in the long water. I am gathered together once more.
Theodore Roethke