Where I Have to Go

THE WAKING
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.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

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.
- Theodore Roethke

I love this poem by Theodore Roethke, written in the mid-twentieth century, when the shining new edges of science and technology assured us the world was a moldable and directed environment; nature was there to be conjured into the inventions and shiny objects of our imaginations. And yet this poem calls us to the mysteries of nature: to the tree, the worm, the ground we stand on. I love the phrase, "I hear my being dance from ear to ear." Can you not also feel your consciousness within your skin? Indeed, especially when you wake, and take it slow? There are many lines in this poem that are there to ponder as single enormous questions: What is there to know? What falls away is always? And is near?

Yet often I wake to the morning, "and take my waking slow." There is a thin boundary of loose connections at first waking. As though consciousness slips through both physical and nonphysical realms with the ease of a night shade. Sleep walking, where have we gone? Back in this anchored reality, where is this? Are we meant to explore everything, to wander thus loosely within body and mind? The last line of the poem makes a fourth line finish to a three-line stanza pattern poem. It is a repeated phrase, used in THE WAKING four times; but at the end, almost as a coda to emphasize the openness of thought, the trusting willingness of the poet to discover his life by a reverent attention to living. I learn by going where I have to go. Perhaps as a writer, I live by listening to what life must say. And you? How do you navigate?

We think by feeling, the poet tells us. Quietly, I agree. This shaking keeps me steady.