In a dark time, the eye begins to see, I meet my shadow in the deepening shade; I hear my echo in the echoing wood-- A lord of nature weeping to a tree, I live between the heron and the wren, Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den. What's madness but nobility of soul At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire! I know the purity of pure despair, My shadow pinned against a sweating wall, That place among the rocks--is it a cave, Or winding path? The edge is what I have. A steady storm of correspondences! A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon, And in broad day the midnight come again! A man goes far to find out what he is-- Death of the self in a long, tearless night, All natural shapes blazing unnatural light. Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire. My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly, Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I? A fallen man, I climb out of my fear. The mind enters itself, and God the mind, And one is One, free in the tearing wind.
You can find this poem in The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke
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This is the most powerful and beautiful poem I have ever experienced. My wife just came into the room and asked if I am ok, as I seem to be talking to myself. I am perfect, said I - I was reading out loud, to myself and to an imagined audience of feeling people, these words crafted to be absorbed through hearing as well as internalized by reading. The perfect poem delivered in the precise time.
Since college, in the 70s, I have loved Roethke. He perceives in nature a salvation from the demons that pursued him through life. An amazing poet, with great music in his words. Yet behind his darkness, there is a light that throws faint shadows. His is a metaphysical view but most of his poems are infused with innocence.