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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.
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
Hands
Moved
Blossoms
Dream
Flower
Leaned
Toward
Cave
Stills
Lived
Dove
Still
Hair
Sang
Love
Called
Caves
Simple
Flowers
Sweetened
Death
Rain
Hollows
More quotes by Theodore Roethke
Fear was my father, Father Fear. His look drained the stones.
Theodore Roethke
In the kingdom of bang and blab.
Theodore Roethke
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.
Theodore Roethke
Pain wanders through my bones like a lost fire
Theodore Roethke
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.
Theodore Roethke
In this place of light: he dares to live Who stops being a bird, yet beats his wings Against the immense immeasurable emptiness of things.
Theodore Roethke
The self says, I am The heart says, I am less The spirit says, you are Nothing.
Theodore Roethke
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.
Theodore Roethke
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.
Theodore Roethke
What falls away is always. And is near.
Theodore Roethke
Nothing would give up life: Even the dirt keeps breathing a small breath.
Theodore Roethke
What is madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance?
Theodore Roethke
How body from spirit slowly does unwind, until we are pure spirit at the end.
Theodore Roethke
When I go mad, I call my friends by phone: I am afraid they might think they're alone.
Theodore Roethke
What's important? That which is dug out of books, or out of the guts?
Theodore Roethke
I wish I could find an event that meant as much as simple seeing.
Theodore Roethke
The poet: would rather eat a heart than a hambone.
Theodore Roethke
Love is not love until love's vulnerable.
Theodore Roethke
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.
Theodore Roethke
Reason? That dreary shed, that hutch for grubby schoolboys.
Theodore Roethke