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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

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Long Live The Weeds

Theodore Roethke

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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.

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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.

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.

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The Poet: Would Rather Eat A Heart Than A Hambone.

And I Walked, I Walked Through The Light Air; I Moved With The Morning.

Wake The Happy Words.

I Learn By Going Where I Have To Go.

When I Go Mad, I Call My Friends By Phone: I Am Afraid They Might Think They're Alone.

In Our Age, If A Boy Or Girl Is Untalented, The Odds Are In Favor Of Their Thinking They Want To Write.

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So Much Of Adolescence Is An Ill-defined Dying, An Intolerable Waiting, A Longing For Another Place And Time, Another Condition.

What's Madness But Nobility Of Soul At Odds With Circumstance? The Day's On Fire! I Know The Purity Of Pure Despair, My Shadow Pinned Against A Sweating Wall, That Place Among The Rocks--is It A Cave, Or Winding Path? The Edge Is What I Have........ ....... Dark,dark My Light, And Darker My Desire. My Soul, Like Some Heat-maddened Summer Fly, Keeps Buzzing At The Sill. ~from "the Waking" By Theodore Roethke

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Love Begets Love. This Torment Is My Joy.

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.

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(i Measure Time By How A Body Sways.)

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May My Silences Become More Accurate.

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In The Kingdom Of Bang And Blab.

All Lovers Live By Longing, And Endure: Summon A Vision And Declare It Pure.

I Bleed My Bones, Their Marrow To Bestowupon That God Who Knows What I Would Know.

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God Bless The Roots! Body And Soul Are One.

In A Dark Time, The Mind Begins To See.

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Time Marks Us While We Are Marking Time.

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.

Who Rise From Flesh To Spirit Know The Fall: The Word Outleaps The World, And Light Is All.

A Mind Too Active Is No Mind At All.

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Those Who Are Willing To Be Vulnerable Move Among Mysteries.

I Have Gone Into The Waste Lonely Places

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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.

The Visible Exhausts Me. I Am Dissolved In Shadow.

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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.

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Art Is Our Defense Against Hysteria And Death.

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Live In A Perpetual Great Astonishment.

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By Daily Dying, I Have Come To Be.

The Mind Enters Itself, And God The Mind, And One Is One, Free In The Tearing Wind.

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.

The Darkness Has It's Own Light.

The Damage Of Teaching: The Constant Contact With The Undeveloped.

We Think By Feeling. What Is There To Know?

Deep In Their Roots, All Flowers Keep The Light.

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