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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
Water
Stones
Ears
Sang
Rain
Veins
Summer
Waters
Early
Ran
Joy
Streams
Knew
River
Came
Rivers
More quotes by Theodore Roethke
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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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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Love is not love until love's vulnerable.
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Time marks us while we are marking time.
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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 wish I could find an event that meant as much as simple seeing.
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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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The poet: would rather eat a heart than a hambone.
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Art is our defense against hysteria and death.
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Being, not doing, is my first joy.
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By daily dying, I have come to be.
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Reason? That dreary shed, that hutch for grubby schoolboys.
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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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How body from spirit slowly does unwind, until we are pure spirit at the end.
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What falls away is always. And is near.
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I learn by going where I have to go.
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I lose and find myself in the long water. I am gathered together once more.
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Live in a perpetual great astonishment.
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The visible exhausts me. I am dissolved in shadow.
Theodore Roethke