Theodore Roethke

A review is on its way, but I wanted to take a moment to post a poem I came across on Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac.  If I time it right, I can catch this brief show on the radio on my way home from teaching my night class.  One night last week I caught this poem by Theodore Roethke, whose work I love, even though I never made a thorough examination of it.  In fact, I could only name “My Papa’s Waltz” and “I Wake To Sleep” as poems of his I know (the latter of which I parodied as “I Wake To Eat”, and published in The Formalist a while back).  So I was happy to stumble across another one of his.

I Knew a Woman

I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,

When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;

Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:

The shapes a bright container can contain!

Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,

Or English poets who grew up on Greek

(I'd have them sing in a chorus, cheek to cheek).

How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,

She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand;

She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin;

I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand;

She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,

Coming behind her for her pretty sake

(But what prodigious mowing we did make).

Love likes a gander, and adores a goose:

Her full lips pursed, the errant notes to seize;

She played it quick, she played it light and loose;

My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;

Her several parts could keep a pure repose,

Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose

(She moved in circles, and those circles moved).

Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:

I'm martyr to a motion not my own;

What's freedom for? To know eternity.

I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.

But who would count eternity in days?

These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:

(I measure time by how a body sways).

from The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke. © Anchor, 1974.

It feels like this poem would be at home in the court of Henry VIII alongside Thomas Wyatt, or the Cavalier Poets like Robert Herrick.  It’s a shame we seemed to lose poets like this in the 20^th century except for a few like Roethke.

You can always see the current Writer’s Almanac at http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/, and search the archive as well.