Theodore Roethke Quotes About Water

Quotes about: Water

• 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

  Memories, Men, Shine On

• I lose and find myself in the long water. I am gathered together once more.

  Theodore Roethke

  Long, Water, Together

  Theodore Roethke (2011). “The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke”, p.285, Anchor

• I have come to a still, but not a deep center,
  A point outside the glittering current;
  My eyes stare at the bottom of a river,
  At the irregular stones, iridescent sandgrains,
  My mind moves in more than one place,
  In a country half-land, half-water.
  I am renewed by death, thought of my death,
  The dry scent of a dying garden in September,
  The wind fanning the ash of a low fire.
  What I love is near at hand,
  Always, in earth and air.

  Theodore Roethke

  Country, Moving, Eye

  Theodore Roethke, “The Far Field”

• I came where the river Ran over stones; My ears knew An early joy. And all the waters Of all the streams Sang in my veins That summer day.

  Theodore Roethke

  Summer, Rain, Rivers

  Theodore Roethke (2005). “Selected Poems”

• 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

  Cutting, Water, Break Out

  Theodore Roethke (2011). “The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke”, p.68, Anchor

• I learned not to fear infinity, The far field, the windy cliffs of forever, The dying of time in the white light of tomorrow, The wheel turning away from itself, The sprawl of the wave, The on-coming water.

  Theodore Roethke

  Light, White, Water

  Theodore Roethke (2011). “The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke”, p.288, Anchor

• A terrible violence of creation,A flash into the burning heart of the abominable;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

  Heart, Fire, Lakes

  Theodore Roethke (1975). “The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke”, Anchor Books

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