Roethke Quotes & Sayings

Self-contemplation is a curse
That makes an old confusion worse. — Theodore Roethke

Dolor
I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils,
Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper weight,
All the misery of manilla folders and mucilage,
Desolation in immaculate public places,
Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard,
The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher,
Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma,
Endless duplicaton of lives and objects.
And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,
Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,
Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,
Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,
Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate gray standard faces. — Theodore Roethke

I long for the imperishable quiet at the heart
of form. — Theodore Roethke

I am overwhelmed by the beautiful disorder of poetry, the eternal virginity of words. — Theodore Roethke

What falls away is always. And is near. — Theodore Roethke

And I rejoiced in being what I was. — Theodore Roethke

Deep in their roots all flowers keep the light. — Theodore Roethke

How body from spirit slowly does unwind, until we are pure spirit at the end. — Theodore Roethke

What's important? That which is dug out of books, or out of the guts? — Theodore Roethke

For me, the writing life doesn't just happen when I sit at the writing desk. It is a life lived with a centering principle, and mine is this: that I will pay close attention to this world I find myself in. 'My heart keeps open house,' was the way the poet Theodore Roethke put it in a poem. And rendering in language what one sees through the opened windows and doors of that house is a way of bearing witness to the mystery of what it is to be alive in this world. — Julia Alvarez

Love alters all. Unblood my instinct, love. — Theodore Roethke

Art is our defense against hysteria and death. — Theodore Roethke

All lovers live by longing, and endure:
Summon a vision and declare it pure. — Theodore Roethke

The light comes brighter from the east; the cawOf restive crows is sharper on the ear. — Theodore Roethke

I have gone into the waste lonely places — 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

I came to love, I came into my own. — Theodore Roethke

The Waking
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go. — Theodore Roethke

The body and the soul know how to play
In that dark world where gods have lost their way. — Theodore Roethke

From The Auction
I left my home with unencumbered will
And all the rubbish of confusion sold. — Theodore Roethke

I fear those shadows most that start from my own feet. — Theodore Roethke

When I go mad,
I call my friends by phone:
I am afraid they might think
they're alone. — Theodore Roethke

Beginnings start without shade,Thinner than minnows.The live grass whirls with the sun,Feet run over the simple stones,There's time enough.Behold, in the lout's eye, love. — Theodore Roethke

Civilization is over-rated, but there isn't much else. — Theodore Roethke

Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I? — 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

Let others probe the mystery if they can.
Time-harried prisoners of Shall and Will-
The right thing happens to the happy man.
The bird flies out, the bird flies back again;
The hill becomes the valley, and is still;
Let others delve that mystery if they can.
God bless the roots! -Body and soul are one
The small become the great, the great the small;
The right thing happens to the happy man.
Child of the dark, he can out leap the sun,
His being single, and that being all:
The right thing happens to the happy man.
Or he sits still, a solid figure when
The self-destructive shake the common wall;
Takes to himself what mystery he can,
And, praising change as the slow night comes on,
Wills what he would, surrendering his will
Till mystery is no more: No more he can.
The right thing happens to the happy man. — Theodore Roethke

I can't go on flying apart just for those who want the benefit of a few verbal kicks. My God, do you know what poems like that cost? They're not written vicariously: they come out of actual suffering, real madness. — Theodore Roethke

A too explicit elucidation in education destroys much of the pleasure of learning. There should be room for sly hinters, masters of suggestion. — Theodore Roethke

Maybe God has a house.
But not here. — Theodore Roethke

Be sure that whatever you are is you. — Theodore Roethke

To follow the drops sliding from a lifting oar, Head up, while the rower breathes, and the small boat drifts quietly shoreward ... — Theodore Roethke

All finite things reveal infinitude: The mountain with its singular bright shade Like the blue shine on freshly frozen snow, The after-light upon ice-burdened pines; Odor of basswood upon a mountain slope, A scene beloved of bees; Silence of water above a sunken tree: The pure serene of memory of one man,- A ripple widening from a single stone Winding around the waters of the world. — Theodore Roethke

Pain wanders through my bones like a lost fire — Theodore Roethke

From I Knew a Woman
I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
The shapes a bright container can contain! — Theodore Roethke

What is desire?
The impulse to make someone else complete?
That woman would set sodden straw on fire. — Theodore Roethke

How terrible the need for God. — Theodore Roethke

I wish I could find an event that meant as much as simple seeing. — Theodore Roethke

The stones were sharp,
The wind came at my back;
Walking along the highway,
Mincing like a cat. — Theodore Roethke

Who rise from flesh to spirit know the fall:
The word outleaps the world, and light is all. — Theodore Roethke

Should we say the self, once perceived, becomes the soul? — Theodore Roethke

In poetry, and in my study in graduate school, I was drawn to a particular poet, Theodore Roethke. I did a dissertation on "The Evolution of Matter and Spirit in the Poetry of Theodore Roethke" for my Ph.D. — Frederick Lenz

What's freedom for? To know eternity. — Theodore Roethke

We think by feeling. What is there to know? — Theodore Roethke

God bless the roots! Body and soul are one. — Theodore Roethke

In a dark time, the eye begins to see. — Theodore Roethke

A wave of Time hangs motionless on this particular shore.
I notice a tree, arsenical grey in the light, or the slow
Wheel of the stars, the Great Bear glittering colder than snow,
And remember there was something else I was hoping for. — Theodore Roethke

In our age, if a boy or girl is untalented, the odds are in favor of their thinking they want to write. — Theodore Roethke

Where has he gone, my meadow mouse,
My thumb of a child that nuzzled in my palm?
To run under the hawk's wing,
Under the eye of the great owl watching from the elm-tree,
To live by courtesy of the shrike, the snake, the tom-cat.
(from "The Meadow Mouse") — Theodore Roethke

May my silences become more accurate. — Theodore Roethke

From Open House
My truths are all foreknown,
This anguish self-revealed.
I'm naked to the bone,
With nakedness my shield.
Myself is what I wear:
I keep the spirit spare. — Theodore Roethke

Yet 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

Brooding on God, I may become a man. — Theodore Roethke

Theodore Roethke was a poet I was raised with so he has a lot of sentimental value for me. — Krist Novoselic

I lose and find myself in the long water. I am gathered together once more. — Theodore Roethke

Epidermal Macabre
Indelicate is he who loathes
The aspect of his fleshy clothes,-
The flying fabric stitched on bone,
The vesture of the skeleton,
The garment neither fur nor hair,
The cloak of evil and despair,
The veil long violated by
Caresses of the hand and eye.
Yet such is my unseemliness:
I hate my epidermal dress,
The savage blood's obscenity,
The rags of my anatomy,
And willingly would I dispense
With false accouterments of sense,
To sleep immodestly, a most
Incarnadine and carnal ghost. — Theodore Roethke

My truths are all foreknown,This anguish self-revealed.I'm naked to the bone,With nakedness my shield. — Theodore Roethke

What have I done, dear God, to deserve this perpetual feeling that I'm almost ready to begin something really new? — Theodore Roethke

Nothing would give up life:
Even the dirt keeps breathing a small breath. — Theodore Roethke

I bleed my bones, their marrow to bestowUpon that God who knows what I would know. — Theodore Roethke

Wish For A Young Wife
My lizard, my lively writher
May your limbs never wither
May the eyes in your face
Survive the green ice
Of envy's mean gaze;
May you live out your life
Without hate, without grief,
And your hair ever blaze,
In the sun, in the sun,
When I am undone,
When I am no one. — Theodore Roethke

The poet: would rather eat a heart than a hambone. — Theodore Roethke

Theodore Roethke said it best: I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go. This shaking keeps me steady. I should know. What falls away is always. And is near. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I learn by going where I have to go.10 In — Carolyn Baker

The self says, I am; The heart says, I am less; The spirit says, you are Nothing. — Theodore Roethke

I learn by going where I have to go — Theodore Roethke

Necessity starves on the stoop of invention. — Theodore Roethke

A mind too active is no mind at all. — Theodore Roethke

I can hear, underground, that sucking and sobbing, In my veins, in my bones I feel it,- The small water seeping upward, The tight grains parting at last. When sprouts break out, Slippery as fish, I quail, lean to beginnings, sheath-wet. — Theodore Roethke

Being, not doing, is my first joy. — 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

I've recovered my tenderness by long looking;
I'm a Socrates of small fury.
The waves bends with the fish. I'm taught
As water teaches stone. Believe me, extremest oriole,
I can hear light on a dry day.
The world is where we fling it; I'm leaving where I am. — Theodore Roethke

The Mistake
He left his pants upon a chair:
She was a widow, so she said:
But he was apprehended, bare,
By one who rose up from the dead. — Theodore Roethke

What we need are more people who specialize in the impossible. — Theodore Roethke

By daily dying, I have come to be. — Theodore Roethke

In White Summer, Joelle Biele exhibits a Roethke-like affinity with nature and natures creatures. At times a miniaturist, Biele constructs exquisite addresses to a heron, cicada, spider, catalpa tree, mockingbird, snail, cormorant, and others. These pitch-perfect poems are written with a delicate, meticulous attention to craft and music. Like the joy she takes in her subjects, this collection is a joy to read. — Elizabeth Spires

My secrets cry aloud.
I have no need for tongue.
My heart keeps open house,
My doors are widely swung.
An epic of the eyes
My love, with no disguise.
My truths are all foreknown,
This anguish self-revealed.
I'm naked to the bone,
With nakedness my shield.
Myself is what I wear:
I keep the spirit spare.
The anger will endure,
The deed will speak the truth
In language strict and pure.
I stop the lying mouth:
Rage warps my clearest cry
To witless agony. — Theodore Roethke

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. — Theodore Roethke

O my poor words, bear with me. — Theodore Roethke

And I walked, I walked through the light air; I moved with the morning. — Theodore Roethke

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 called;The flowers leaned on themselves, the flowers in hollows;And love, love sang toward. — Theodore Roethke

Time marks us while we are marking time. — Theodore Roethke

Love begets love. This torment is my joy. — Theodore Roethke

Love makes me naked;
Propinquity's a harsh master;
O the songs we hide singing to ourselves! — Theodore Roethke

LULL
(November, 1939)

The winds of hatred blow
Cold, cold across the flesh
And chill the anxious heart;
Intricate phobias grow
From each malignant wish
To spoil collective life.
Now each man stands apart.

We watch opinion drift,
Think of our separate skins.
On well-upholstered bums
The generals cough and shift
Playing with painted pins.
The arbitrators wait;
The newsmen suck their thumbs.
The mind is quick to turn
Away from simple faith
To the cant and fury of
Fools who will never learn;
Reason embraces death,
While out of frightened eyes
Still stares the wish to love. — 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

My Papa's Waltz: The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother's countenance Could not unfrown itself. The hand that held my wrist Was battered on one knuckle; At every step you missed My right ear scraped a buckle. You beat time on my head With a palm caked hard by dirt, Then waltzed me off to bed Still clinging to your shirt. — Theodore Roethke

Those who are willing to be vulnerable move among mysteries. — Theodore Roethke

Over every mountain, there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley. — Theodore Roethke

What's madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance? — Theodore Roethke

Too much reality can be a dazzle, a surfeit;Too close immediacy an exhaustion — Theodore Roethke

My bones whisper to my blood; my sleep deceives me. — Theodore Roethke

Live in a perpetual great astonishment. — Theodore Roethke

You must believe a poem is a holy thing, a good poem, that is. — 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

ROOT CELLAR
Nothing would sleep in that cellar, dank as a ditch,
Bulbs broke out of boxes hunting for chinks in the dark,
Shoots dangled and drooped,
Lolling obscenely from mildewed crates,
Hung down long yellow evil necks, like tropical snakes.
And what a congress of stinks!
Roots ripe as old bait,
Pulpy stems, rank, silo-rich,
Leaf-mold, manure, lime, piled against slippery planks.
Nothing would give up life:
Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath. — Theodore Roethke

The two duties are to lament or praise. — Theodore Roethke

My father is a fish. — Theodore Roethke

The damage of teaching: the constant contact with the undeveloped. — Theodore Roethke

I may look like a beer salesman, but I'm a poet. — Theodore Roethke

It's your privilege to find me incomprehensible. I gave you my minutes; let them remain ours. I hope I haunt you. — Theodore Roethke