Theodore Roethke
Theodore Roethke
Theodore Huebner Roethkewas an American poet. He published several volumes of award-winning and critically acclaimed poetry. Roethke is regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential poets of his generation...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth25 May 1908
CountryUnited States of America
knowledge thinking feelings
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
desire want partners
The living all assemble! What's the cue?-- Do what the clumsy partner wants to do!
fire desire impulse
What is desire?-- The impulse to make someone else complete? That woman would set sodden straw on fire.
heart long quiet
I long for the imperishable quiet at the heart of form.
vision lovers longing
All lovers live by longing, and endure: Summon a vision and declare it pure.
eye dark light
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.
waiting dying longing
So much of adolescence is an ill-defined dying, An intolerable waiting, A longing for another place and time, Another condition.
body
(I measure time by how a body sways.)
wings light bird
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.
self shields naked
My truths are all foreknown,This anguish self-revealed.I'm naked to the bone,With nakedness my shield.
relationship love-is vulnerable
Love is not love until love's vulnerable.
nature attitude flower
Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light.
doe body spirit
How body from spirit slowly does unwind, until we are pure spirit at the end.
failure adversity wrestling
Over every mountain there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley.