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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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Theodore Roethke
Age: 55 †
Born: 1908
Born: May 25
Died: 1963
Died: August 1
Poet
Teacher
Writer
Saginaw
Michigan
Says
Less
Spirit
Nothing
Self
Heart
Humility

More quotes by Theodore Roethke

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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 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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How terrible the need for God.
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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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Pain wanders through my bones like a lost fire
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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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Reason? That dreary shed, that hutch for grubby schoolboys.
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All lovers live by longing, and endure: Summon a vision and declare it pure.
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The visible exhausts me. I am dissolved in shadow.
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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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A mind too active is no mind at all.
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Nothing would give up life: Even the dirt keeps breathing a small breath.
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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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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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Fear was my father, Father Fear. His look drained the stones.
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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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Being, not doing, is my first joy.
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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.
Theodore Roethke