Root Cellar
 

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I came across this poem by Roethke yesterday. For me, it does pretty much everything a poem can do to lead me to a place that I have never been, yet nonetheless gives me a sense of deja vous.


Root Cellar

By Theodore Roethke

Nothing would sleep in that cellar, dank as a ditch,
Bulbs broke out of boxes hunting for chinks in the dark,
Shoots dangled and drooped,
Lolling obscenely from mildewed crates,
Hung down long yellow evil necks, like tropical snakes.
And what a congress of stinks!—
Roots ripe as old bait,
Pulpy stems, rank, silo-rich,
Leaf-mold, manure, lime, piled against slippery planks.
Nothing would give up life:
Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath.

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Yes, Roethke is great. One of the first poets I ever read when I was first getting hooked on poetry (Roethke, cummings, and Keats were the ones who reeled me in). Here's another very short one he wrote:

Child on Top of a Greenhouse

The wind billowing out the seat of my britches,
My feet crackling splinters of glass and dried putty,
The half-grown chrysanthemums staring up like accusers,
Up through the streaked glass, flashing with sunlight,
A few white clouds all rushing eastward,
A line of elms plunging and tossing like horses,
And everyone, everyone pointing up and shouting!

And one more classic. Phrases from this one have into my mind now and then over the years, especially the first line:


Dolor
by Theodore Roethke

I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils,
Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper weight,
All the misery of manilla folders and mucilage,
Desolation in immaculate public places,
Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard,
The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher,
Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma,
Endless duplication of lives and objects.
And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,
Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,
Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,
Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,
Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate grey standard faces.

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Where has Roethke been all my poetic life? Suddenly he's here. I'll stay up late tonight looking for more diamonds in his mine.

Thanks for the two poems. Both startling perspectives from unexpected places. The last line of Child on Top of a Greenhouse is amazing. I wonder if the child found safety. I'd like to think s/he did. "Child" and "poet" are synonyms in many ways.

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When we talk about imagery, it's usually visual or sonic. This is the best olfactory poem I know of.