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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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Theodore Roethke
Age: 55 †
Born: 1908
Born: May 25
Died: 1963
Died: August 1
Poet
Teacher
Writer
Saginaw
Michigan
Believe
Beyond
Good
Holy
Unwritten
Time
Written
Poem
Seems
Gods
Must
Miracle
Even
Capacity
Thing
Short
Something
Poetry

More quotes by Theodore Roethke

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And I walked, I walked through the light air I moved with the morning.
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Nothing would give up life: Even the dirt keeps breathing a small breath.
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How body from spirit slowly does unwind, until we are pure spirit at the end.
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Death was not. I lived in a simple drowse:Hands and hair moved through a dream of wakening blossoms.Rain sweetened the cave and the dove still calledThe flowers leaned on themselves, the flowers in hollowsAnd love, love sang toward.
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Let others probe the mystery if they can.Time-harried prisoners of Shall and Will -The right thing happens to the happy man.
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We think by feeling. What is there to know?
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Fear was my father, Father Fear. His look drained the stones.
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I am overwhelmed by the beautiful disorder of poetry, the eternal virginity of words.
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What's important? That which is dug out of books, or out of the guts?
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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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Being, not doing, is my first joy.
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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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The indignity of it!- With everything blooming above me, Lilies, pale-pink cyclamen, roses, Whole fields lovely and inviolate,- Me down in the fetor of weeds, Crawling on all fours, Alive, in a slippery grave.
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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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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.
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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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I always felt mean, jogging back over the logging road,As if I had broken the natural order of things in that swamplandDisturbed some rhythm, old and of vast importance,By pulling off flesh from the living planetAs if I had committed, against the whole scheme of life, a desecration.
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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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Time marks us while we are marking time.
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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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