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Fear was my father, Father Fear. His look drained the stones.

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
Drained
Stones
Fear
Father
Look
Looks

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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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The stones were sharp, The wind came at my back Walking along the highway, Mincing like a cat.
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We think by feeling. What is there to know?
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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 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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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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The poet: would rather eat a heart than a hambone.
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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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I wish I could find an event that meant as much as simple seeing.
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Reason? That dreary shed, that hutch for grubby schoolboys.
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Time marks us while we are marking time.
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I am overwhelmed by the beautiful disorder of poetry, the eternal virginity of words.
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Art is our defense against hysteria and death.
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I learn by going where I have to go.
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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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Nothing would give up life: Even the dirt keeps breathing a small breath.
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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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Love is not love until love's vulnerable.
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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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The visible exhausts me. I am dissolved in shadow.
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