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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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Time marks us while we are marking time.
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Reason? That dreary shed, that hutch for grubby schoolboys.
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What is madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance?
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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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We think by feeling. What is there to know?
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The visible exhausts me. I am dissolved in shadow.
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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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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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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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A mind too active is no mind at all.
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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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All lovers live by longing, and endure: Summon a vision and declare it pure.
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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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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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I lose and find myself in the long water. I am gathered together once more.
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Love is not love until love's vulnerable.
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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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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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I wish I could find an event that meant as much as simple seeing.
Theodore Roethke