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A terrible violence of creation,
A flash into the burning heart of the abominable;
Yet if we wait, unafraid, beyond the fearful instant,
The burning lake turns into a forest pool,
The fire subsides into rings of water,
A sunlit silence.

— Theodore Roethke The Far Field (1964)

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More quotes by Theodore Roethke

God bless the roots! — Body and soul are one!
The small become the great, the great the small;
The right thing happens to the happy man.

The Far Field (1964)

Voice, come out of the silence.
Say something.

The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948)

And soon a branch, part of a hidden scene,
The leafy mind, that long was tightly furled,
Will turn its private substance into green,
And young shoots spread upon our inner world.

Open House (1941)

To know that light falls and fills, often without our knowing.

The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948)

Art is the means we have of undoing the damage of haste. It's what everything else isn't.

Poetry and Craft (1965)

All Theodore Roethke quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Theodore Roethke (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.