Theodore Roethke Poems
In my mind’s eye I see those fields of glass
As I looked out at them from the high house.
I’d stand upon my bed, a sleepless child
Watching the waking of my father’s world.
O world so far away! Oh my lost world!
When the lady’s guild puts on a feed,
There’s beans on every plate,
And if you eat more than you should,
Destruction is complete.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
The river turns on itself
The tree retreats into its shadow
I feel a weightless change, a moving forward
As of water quickening before a narrow channel.
In Saginaw, in Saginaw
Bartenders think no ill;
But they’ve ways of indicating when
You are not acting well:
They throw you through the front plate glass
And then send you the bill.