Quote

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.

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
Water
Stones
Ears
Sang
Rain
Veins
Summer
Waters
Early
Ran
Joy
Streams
Knew
River
Came
Rivers

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Nothing would give up life: Even the dirt keeps breathing a small breath.
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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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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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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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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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I learn by going where I have to go.
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What's important? That which is dug out of books, or out of the guts?
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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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How body from spirit slowly does unwind, until we are pure spirit at the end.
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Art is our defense against hysteria and death.
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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.
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We think by feeling. What is there to know?
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A mind too active is no mind at all.
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Reason? That dreary shed, that hutch for grubby schoolboys.
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How terrible the need for God.
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