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Theodore Roethke

Theodore Roethke

The Minimal

I study the lives on a leaf: the little
Sleepers, 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
Wriggling through wounds
Like elvers in ponds,
Their wan mouths kissing the warm sutures,
Cleaning and caressing,
Creeping and healing.

#AmericanWriters

Altre opere di Theodore Roethke...
Snake

I saw a young snake glide Out of the mottled shade And hang, limp on a stone: A thin mouth, and a tongue Stayed, in the still air.
The Waking

I strolled across An open field; The sun was out; Heat was happy. This way! This way!
Child on Top of a Greenhouse

The wind billowing out the seat of… My feet crackling splinters of gla… The half-grown chrysanthemums star… Up through the streaked glass, fla… A few white clouds all rushing eas…
Root Cellar

Nothing would sleep in that cellar… Bulbs broke out of boxes hunting f… Shoots dangled and drooped, Lolling obscenely from mildewed cr… Hung down long yellow evil necks,…
The Meadow Mouse

In a shoe box stuffed in an old ny… Sleeps the baby mouse I found in… Where he trembled and shook beneat… Till I caught him up by the tail… Cradled in my hand,
Pickle Belt

The fruit rolled by all day. They prayed the cogs would creep; They thought about Saturday pay, And Sunday sleep. Whatever he smelled was good:
Cuttings (later)

This urge, wrestle, resurrection o… Cut stems struggling to put down f… What saint strained so much, Rose on such lopped limbs to a new… I can hear, underground, that suck…
Once More, the Round

What’s greater, Pebble or Pond? What can be known? The Unknown. My true self runs toward a Hill More! O More! visible. Now I adore my life
Sleeping Savoyard Boy, by Wilhelm Leibl
The Sloth

In moving-slow he has no Peer. You ask him something in his Ear, He thinks about it for a Year; And, then, before he says a Word There, upside down (unlike a Bird…
 2
I Knew a Woman

I knew a woman, lovely in her bone… When small birds sighed, she would… Ah, when she moved, she moved more… The shapes a bright container can… Of her choice virtues only gods sh…
Elegy for Jane

I remember the neckcurls, limp and… And her quick look, a sidelong pic… And how, once started into talk, t… And she balanced in the delight of… A wren, happy, tail into the wind,
In a Dark Time

In a dark time, the eye begins to… I meet my shadow in the deepening… I hear my echo in the echoing wood… A lord of nature weeping to a tree… I live between the heron and the w…
 1
The Voice

One feather is a bird, I claim; one tree, a wood; In her low voice I heard More than a mortal should; And so I stood apart,
The Visitant

A cloud moved close. The bulk of… A tree swayed over water. A voice said: Stay. Stay by the slip—ooze. Stay… Dearest tree, I said, may I rest…
She

I think the dead are tender. Shal… My lady laughs, delighting in what… If she but sighs, a bird puts out… She makes space lonely with a love… She lilts a low soft language, and…



Alto