Theodore Roethke
UNFOLDI UNFOLDI
By
snails, by leaps of frog, I came here, spirit.
Tell me, body without skin, does a fish sweat?
I can't crawl back through those veins,
I ache for another choice.
The cliffs! The cliffs! They fling me back.
Eternity howls in the last crags,
The field is no longer simple:
It's a soul's crossing time.
The dead speak noise.
II
It's time you stood up and asked
-Or sat down and did.
A tongue without song
- Can still whistle in a jug.
You're blistered all over
- Who cares? The old owl?
When you find the wind
- Look for the white fire.
III
What a whelm of proverbs, Mr. Pinch!
Are the entrails clear, immaculate cabbage?
The last time I nearly whispered myself away.
I was far back, farther than anybody else.
On the jackpine plains I hunted the bird nobody knows;
Fishing, I caught myself behind the ears.
Alone, in a sleep-daze, I stared at billboards;
I was privy to oily fungus and the algae of standing waters;
Honoured, on my return, by the ancient fellowship of rotten stems.
