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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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How terrible the need for God.
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Nothing would give up life: Even the dirt keeps breathing a small breath.
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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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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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I have gone into the waste lonely places
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What's important? That which is dug out of books, or out of the guts?
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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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The living all assemble! What's the cue?-- Do what the clumsy partner wants to do!
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I lose and find myself in the long water. I am gathered together once more.
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I wish I could find an event that meant as much as simple seeing.
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Being, not doing, is my first joy.
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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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A mind too active is no mind at all.
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I learn by going where I have to go.
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What is madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance?
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All lovers live by longing, and endure: Summon a vision and declare it pure.
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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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Live in a perpetual great astonishment.
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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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