In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood—
A lord of nature weeping to a tree.
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.
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.
A steady storm of correspondences!
A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,
And in broad day the midnight come again!
A man goes far to find out what he is—
Death of the self in a long, tearless night,
All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.
Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind.
Theodore Roethke
1908–1963
I adore Roethke and so few bring him up these days. An amazing, sensuous, enormously talented poet. I have all of his books and collections. He deserves more attention. He was a great poet. Thank you for this. And you are a mathematician? Surprising. 🙂
I agree! He was a fine poet who demands our attention. Thank you for commenting.
“A mathematician who is not also something of a poet will never be a complete mathematician” … Karl Weierstrass
How wonderful. An amazing range you must have.
Poetry, like mathematics, is for learners. At a mere whiff of arrogance, both will find you undone…