Theodore Roethke

The Pike

The river turns,Leaving a place for the eye to rest,A furred, a rocky pool,A bottom of water.The crabs tilt and eat, leisurely,And the small fish lie, without shadow, motionless,Or drift lazily in and out of the weeds.The bottom-stones shimmer back their irregular striations,And the half-sunken branch bends away from the gazer’s eye.A scene for the…

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Who says? A nameless stranger.Is he a bird or a tree? Not everyone can tell.Water recedes to the crying of spiders.An old scow bumps over black rocks.A cracked pod calls.Mother me out of here. What more will the bones allow?Will the sea give the wind suck? A toad folds into a stone.These flowers are all…

In Saginaw, in Saginaw,

When the ladies’ guild puts on a feed,There’s beans on every plate,And if you eat more than you should,Destruction is complete.Out Hemlock Way there is a streamThat some have called Swan Creek;The turtles have bloodsucker sores,And mossy filthy feet;The bottoms of migrating ducksCome off it much less neat.In Saginaw, in Saginaw,Bartenders think no ill;But they’ve…