For Me: Poem of the Day "The Waking"

Yesterday, Emma and I made a poshmark (love) sale to someone whose code name is "wake to sleep." This reminded me of the Theodore Roethke poem. I never teach this because in my department, courses in English lit (and that is where I'm at) can NOT include anything outside that category. No boundary violations!* No thematic courses! So I found my book, sat down, and read the poem over and over, as I used to do all the time, and still sometimes do. And should do more.

*All cultures have boundary conventions. In Paris, Tom and I wandered through Monoprix and a grocery store looking for aspirin. Non! Only available in pharmacies--behind the counter. 

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.   

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.   

I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?   

I hear my being dance from ear to ear.   

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?   

God bless the Ground!   I shall walk softly there,   

And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?   

The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;   

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do   

To you and me; so take the lively air,   

And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.   

What falls away is always. And is near.   

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.   

I learn by going where I have to go.

   This is a villanelle. In a good one, the pattern of repeated lines always makes me teary-eyed (why, I do wonder). This is a good one. The last two lines come together with the beauty of inevitability, or perhaps, the inevitability of beauty.