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What Falls Away Is Always. And Is Near.

-Theodore Roethke

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What Falls Away Is

Theodore Roethke

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What Falls Away Is Always. And Is Near.

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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 Learn By Going Where I Have To Go.

The Self Says, I Am; The Heart Says, I Am Less; The Spirit Says, You Are Nothing.

What We Need Is More People Who Specialize In The Impossible.

What Falls Away Is Always. And Is Near.

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

Pain Wanders Through My Bones Like A Lost Fire

What Is Desire?-- The Impulse To Make Someone Else Complete? That Woman Would Set Sodden Straw On Fire.

Teach As An Old Fishing Guide Takes Out A Beginner.

In The Kingdom Of Bang And Blab.

Be Sure That Whatever You Are Is You.

I Came To Love, I Came Into My Own.

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.

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

(i Measure Time By How A Body Sways.)

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

Those Who Are Willing To Be Vulnerable Move Among Mysteries.

May My Silences Become More Accurate.

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.

I Can't Go On Flying Apart Just For Those Who Want The Benefit Of A Few Verbal Kicks. My God, Do You Know What Poems Like That Cost? They're Not Written Vicariously: They Come Out Of Actual Suffering, Real Madness.

The Darkness Has It's Own Light.

The Visible Exhausts Me. I Am Dissolved In Shadow.

The Stones Were Sharp, The Wind Came At My Back; Walking Along The Highway, Mincing Like A Cat.

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 Lose And Find Myself In The Long Water. I Am Gathered Together Once More.

Over Every Mountain There Is A Path, Although It May Not Be Seen From The Valley.

Deep In Their Roots, All Flowers Keep The Light.

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.

The Body And The Soul Know How To Play In That Dark World Where Gods Have Lost Their Way.

A Lively Understandable Spirit Once Entertained You. It Will Come Again. Be Still. Wait.

The Indignity Of It!- With Everything Blooming Above Me, Lilies, Pale-pink Cyclamen, Roses, Whole Fields Lovely And Inviolate,- Me Down In The Fetor Of Weeds, Crawling On All Fours, Alive, In A Slippery Grave.

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

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.

Civilization Is Over-rated, But There Isn't Much Else.

The Living All Assemble! What's The Cue?-- Do What The Clumsy Partner Wants To Do!

In A Dark Time, The Mind Begins To See.

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.

My Truths Are All Foreknown,this Anguish Self-revealed.i'm Naked To The Bone,with Nakedness My Shield.

Art Is Our Defense Against Hysteria And Death.

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.

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.

Nothing Would Give Up Life: Even The Dirt Keeps Breathing A Small Breath.

I Long For The Imperishable Quiet At The Heart Of Form.

How Terrible The Need For God.

How Body From Spirit Slowly Does Unwind, Until We Are Pure Spirit At The End.

And I Rejoiced In Being What I Was.

I Teach My Sighs To Lengthen Into Songs.

Any Fool Can Take A Bad Line Out Of A Poem; It Takes A Real Pro To Throw Out A Good Line.

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Wake The Happy Words.

Art Is The Means We Have Of Undoing The Damage Of Haste. It's What Everything Else Isn't.

But When I Breath With The Birds, The Spirit Of Wrath Becomes The Spirit Of Blessings, And The Dead Begin From Their Dark To Sing In My Sleep.

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

Fear Was My Father, Father Fear. His Look Drained The Stones.

I Always Felt Mean, Jogging Back Over The Logging Road,as If I Had Broken The Natural Order Of Things In That Swampland;disturbed Some Rhythm, Old And Of Vast Importance,by Pulling Off Flesh From The Living Planet;as If I Had Committed, Against The Whole Scheme Of Life, A Desecration.

What's Important? That Which Is Dug Out Of Books, Or Out Of The Guts?

What Have I Done, Dear God, To Deserve This Perpetual Feeling That I'm Almost Ready To Begin Something Really New?

Time Marks Us While We Are Marking Time.

What Is Madness But Nobility Of Soul At Odds With Circumstance?

And Soon A Branch, Part Of A Hidden Scene,the Leafy Mind, That Long Was Tightly Furled,will Turn Its Private Substance Into Green,and Young Shoots Spread Upon Our Inner World.

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

A Mind Too Active Is No Mind At All.

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To Follow The Drops Sliding From A Lifting Oar, Head Up, While The Rower Breathes, And The Small Boat Drifts Quietly Shoreward.

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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.

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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By Daily Dying, I Have Come To Be.

Should We Say The Self, Once Perceived, Becomes The Soul?

I Wish I Could Find An Event That Meant As Much As Simple Seeing.

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You Must Believe A Poem Is A Holy Thing, A Good Poem, That Is.

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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.

We Think By Feeling. What Is There To Know?

Love Begets Love. This Torment Is My Joy.

God Bless The Roots! Body And Soul Are One.

Love Is Not Love Until Love's Vulnerable.

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

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