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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
Looks
Drained
Stones
Fear
Father
Look

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Being, not doing, is my first joy.
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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 terrible the need for God.
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The poet: would rather eat a heart than a hambone.
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The visible exhausts me. I am dissolved in shadow.
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What falls away is always. And is near.
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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 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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All lovers live by longing, and endure: Summon a vision and declare it pure.
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I lose and find myself in the long water. I am gathered together once more.
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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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Time marks us while we are marking time.
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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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How body from spirit slowly does unwind, until we are pure spirit at the end.
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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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The living all assemble! What's the cue?-- Do what the clumsy partner wants to do!
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Nothing would give up life: Even the dirt keeps breathing a small breath.
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Let others probe the mystery if they can.Time-harried prisoners of Shall and Will -The right thing happens to the happy man.
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What is madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance?
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