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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.

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

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I wish I could find an event that meant as much as simple seeing.
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I have gone into the waste lonely places
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Reason? That dreary shed, that hutch for grubby schoolboys.
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How body from spirit slowly does unwind, until we are pure spirit at the end.
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A too explicit elucidation in education destroys much of the pleasure of learning. There should be room for sly hinters, masters of suggestion.
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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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How terrible the need for God.
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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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Being, not doing, is my first joy.
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Pain wanders through my bones like a lost fire
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Fear was my father, Father Fear. His look drained the stones.
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Art is our defense against hysteria and death.
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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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Live in a perpetual great astonishment.
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A mind too active is no mind at all.
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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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In the kingdom of bang and blab.
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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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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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