I Knew a Woman -- Theodore Roethke

(Poem #161)I Knew a Woman I knew a woman, lovely in her bones, When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them; Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one: The shapes a bright container can contain! Of her choice virtues only gods should speak, Or English poets who grew up on Greek (I'd have them sing in a chorus, cheek to cheek). How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin, She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand; She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin; I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand; She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake, Coming behind her for her pretty sake (But what prodigious mowing we did make). Love likes a gander, and adores a goose: Her full lips pursed, the errant notes to seize; She played it quick, she played it light and loose; My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees; Her several parts could keep a pure repose, Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose (She moved in circles, and those circles moved). Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay: I'm martyr to a motion not my own; What's freedom for? To know eternity. I swear she cast a shadow white as stone. But who would count eternity in days? These old bones live to learn her wanton ways: (I measure time by how a body sways). -- Theodore Roethke

The Meadow Mouse -- Theodore Roethke

(Poem #31)The Meadow Mouse 1 In a shoe box stuffed in an old nylon stocking Sleeps the baby mouse I found in the meadow, Where he trembled and shook beneath a stick Till I caught him up by the tail and brought him in, Cradled in my hand, A little quaker, the whole body of him trembling, His absurd whiskers sticking out like a cartoon-mouse, His feet like small leaves, Little lizard-feet, Whitish and spread wide when he tried to struggle away, Wriggling like a minuscule puppy. Now he's eaten his three kinds of cheese and drunk from his bottle-cap watering-trough-- So much he just lies in one corner, His tail curled under him, his belly big As his head; his bat-like ears Twitching, tilting toward the least sound. Do I imagine he no longer trembles When I come close to him? He seems no longer to tremble. 2 But this morning the shoe-box house on the back porch is empty. Where has he gone, my meadow mouse, My thumb of a child that nuzzled in my palm?-- To run under the hawk's wing, Under the eye of the great owl watching from the elm-tree, To live by courtesy of the shrike, the snake, the tom-cat. I think of the nestling fallen into the deep grass, The turtle gasping in the dusty rubble of the highway, The paralytic stunned in the tub, and the water rising,-- All things innocent, hapless, forsaken. -- Theodore Roethke