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Theodore Roethke

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.

#AmericanWriters Villanelle

1
Préféré par...
Y. J. Hall
Autres oeuvres par Theodore Roethke...
The Far Field

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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.
Once More, the Round

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The Waking

I strolled across An open field; The sun was out; Heat was happy. This way! This way!
The Bat

By day the bat is cousin to the mo… He likes the attic of an aging hou… His fingers make a hat about his h… His pulse beat is so slow we think… He loops in crazy figures half the…
The Reckoning

All profits disappear: the gain Of ease, the hoarded, secret sum; And now grim digits of old pain Return to litter up our home. We hunt the cause of ruin, add,
The Storm

Against the stone breakwater, Only an ominous lapping, While the wind whines overhead, Coming down from the mountain, Whistling between the arbors, the…
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…
Journey into the Interior

In the long journey out of the sel… There are many detours, washed—out… Where the shale slides dangerously And the back wheels hang almost ov… At the sudden veering, the moment…
The Saginaw Song

In Saginaw, in Saginaw, The wind blows up your feet, When the ladies’ guild puts on a f… There’s beans on every plate, And if you eat more than you shoul…
The Shape of the Fire

What’s this? A dish for fat lips. Who says? A nameless stranger. Is he a bird or a tree? Not every… Water recedes to the crying of spi… An old scow bumps over black rocks…
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…
The Geranium

When I put her out, once, by the… She looked so limp and bedraggled, So foolish and trusting, like a si… Or a wizened aster in late Septem… I brought her back in again
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,



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