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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
Summon
Declare
Longing
Endure
Lovers
Pure
Vision
Live

More quotes by Theodore Roethke

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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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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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Nothing would give up life: Even the dirt keeps breathing a small breath.
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What's important? That which is dug out of books, or out of the guts?
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Pain wanders through my bones like a lost fire
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I learn by going where I have to go.
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A mind too active is no mind at all.
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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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Being, not doing, is my first joy.
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And I walked, I walked through the light air I moved with the morning.
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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 terrible the need for God.
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How body from spirit slowly does unwind, until we are pure spirit at the end.
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What falls away is always. And is near.
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The living all assemble! What's the cue?-- Do what the clumsy partner wants to do!
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I came to love, I came into my own.
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Who rise from flesh to spirit know the fall: The word outleaps the world, and light is all.
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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.
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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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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.
Theodore Roethke