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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?

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
Really
Deserve
Begin
Ready
Almost
Feeling
Feelings
Done
Perpetual
Something
Dear

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I have gone into the waste lonely places
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Fear was my father, Father Fear. His look drained the stones.
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All lovers live by longing, and endure: Summon a vision and declare it pure.
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What falls away is always. And is near.
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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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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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What's important? That which is dug out of books, or out of the guts?
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We think by feeling. What is there to know?
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I learn by going where I have to go.
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Nothing would give up life: Even the dirt keeps breathing a small breath.
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A mind too active is no mind at all.
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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 came to love, I came into my own.
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And I walked, I walked through the light air I moved with the morning.
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The self says, I am The heart says, I am less The spirit says, you are Nothing.
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How body from spirit slowly does unwind, until we are pure spirit at the end.
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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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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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