Theodore Roethke - Life Quotes

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Now I adore my life
With the Bird, the abiding Leaf,
With the Fish, the questing Snail,
And the Eye altering all;
And I dance with William Blake For love, for Love's sake.

Theodore Roethke

Tugging all day at perverse life:
The indignity of it!

Theodore Roethke

What's the worst portion in this mortal life? A pensive mistress, and a yelping wife.

Theodore Roethke

This urge, wrestle, resurrection of dry sticks,
Cut stems struggling to put down feet,
What saint strained so much,
Rose on such lopped limbs to a new life?

Theodore Roethke

Nothing would give up life:
Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath.

Theodore Roethke

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.

Theodore Roethke