Quotes from Theodore Roethke

I know the purity of pure despair, My shadow pinned against a sweating wall. That place among the rocks—is it a cave, Or winding path? The edge is what I have. — Theodore Roethke, from "In a Dark Time," The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke . (Anchor Books January 10, 1975) Originally published 1961.

Perhaps no person can be a poet, or even can enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind.

When you begin to get good, you'll arouse the haters of life.

We breathe in unison. The outside dies within, And she knows all I am. — Theodore Roethke, section 1 of "Memory," The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke (Doubleday, 1975)

What shakes the eye but the invisible?

Money money money Water water water

And you just know he knows he knows.

I think the dead are tender. Shall we kiss?--

Child On Top Of A Greenhouse The wind billowing out the seat of my britches, My feet crackling splinters of glass and dried putty, The half-grown chrysanthemums staring up like accusers, Up through the streaked glass, flashing with sunlight, A few white clouds all rushing eastward, A line of elms plunging and tossing like horses, And everyone, everyone pointing up and shouting!

The living all assemble! What's the cue?-- Do what the clumsy partner wants to do!

When true love broke my heart in half, I took the whiskey from the shelf, And told my neighbors when to laugh.I keep a dog, and bark myself.

The soul has many motions, body one.

I see, in evening air,How slowly dark comes down on what we do.

Brooding on God, I may become a man.Pain wanders through my bones like a lost fire;What burns me now? Desire, desire, desire.

Nothing would give up life:Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath.

I study the lives on a leaf: the littleSleepers, numb nudgers in cold dimensions,Beetles in caves, newts, stone-deaf fishes,Lice tethered to long limp subterranean weeds,Squirmers in bogs,And bacterial creepers.

This urge, wrestle, resurrection of dry sticks,Cut stems struggling to put down feet,What saint strained so much,Rose on such lopped limbs to a new life?

I remember the neckcurls, limp and damp as tendrils,And her quick look, a sidelong pickerel smile.

What I love is near at hand,Always, in earth and air.

Lord, hear me out, and hear me out this day:From me to Thee's a long and terrible way.

My secrets cry aloud.I have no need for tongue.My heart keeps open house,My doors are widely flung.

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

The soul has many motions, body one.

When I was a lark, I sang;When I was a worm, I devoured.