Words for the Wind Quotes

“So much of adolescence is an ill-defined dying,
An intolerable waiting,
A longing for another place and time,
Another condition.”
― Theodore Roethke, Words for the Wind: The Collected Verse

“All lovers live by longing, and endure:
Summon a vision and declare it pure.”
― Theodore Roethke, Words for the Wind: The Collected Verse

“I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.”
― Theodore Roethke, Words for the Wind: The Collected Verse

“My father is a fish.”
― Theodore Roethke, Words for the Wind: The Collected Verse

“Loved heart, what can I say?
When I was a lark, I sang;
When I was a worm, I devoured.

The self says, I am;
The heart says, I am less;
The spirit says, you are nothing.”
― Theodore Roethke, Words for the Wind: The Collected Verse

“Was I the servant of a sovereign wish,
Or ladle rattling in an empty dish?”
― Theodore Roethke, Words for the Wind: The Collected Verse