Phillip

THE PURE FURY by Theodore Roethke//Stupor of knowledge lacking inwardness–/ What book, O learned man, will set me right?/ Once I read nothing through a fearful night,/ For every meaning had grown meaningless./ Morning, I saw the world with second sight,/ As if all things had died, and rose again./ I touched the stones, and they had my own skin.//The pure admire the pure, and live alone;/ I love a woman with an empty face./ Parmenides put Nothingness in place;/ She tries to think, and it flies loose again./ How slow the changes of a golden mean:/ Great Boehme rooted all in Yes and No;/ At times my darling squeaks in pure Plato.//How terrible the need for solitude:/ That appetite for life so ravenous/ A man’s a beast prowling in his own house,/ A beast with fangs, and out for his own blood/ Until he finds the thing he almost was/ When the pure fury first raged in his head/ And trees came closer with a denser shade.//Dream of a woman, and a dream of death:/ The light air takes my being’s breath away;/ I look on white, and it turns into gray–/ When will that creature give me back my breath?/ I live near the abyss. I hope to stay/ Until my eyes look at a brighter sun/ As the thick shade of the long night comes on.//