April 2, 2005: The Waking, Theodore Roethke
The Waking
Theodore Roethke
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I cannot 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.
[I don’t normally like vilanelles much, but this is a notable exception. I wrote my master’s dissertation partially on Roethke’s North American Sequence which, like this and most of his poetry is thinky and ties in nature to ideas of death and life and stuff. And is all about paradoxes. I particularly like this read in conjunction with
Dylan Thomas’ more famous Do not go gentle into that good night, which has quite the opposite attitude. Death vilanelle double feature!]
MORE LIKE THIS:
— Do not go gentle into that good night, by Dylan Thomas
— My Papa’s Waltz, by Theodore Roethke
