#18 A Strut for Roethke

http://allpoetry.com/Dream-Song-18:-A-Strut-for-Roethke

The poet Theodore Roethke died in 1963. Like so many of those mid-century poets, it seems, he was a hard drinker, suffered serious mental health issues, and never made it to old age. Roethke had a heart attack while swimming and died in the pool. He was 53. #18 is Berryman's tribute. Rather than analyze the poem, I've reread Roethke this morning, a poet I'm not very familiar with. He was known in part for his series of the so-called "Greenhouse Poems," reflections on his early years, with plants and nature taking on symbolic significance. (His father owned a large nursery, so plants, trees, flowers, and greenhouses were important aspects of Roethke's upbringing.) Here, then, is a poem about death and life, extinction, and the emerald ash borer.

                                                 Ashes

Beetles green, an ecstasy
Of worming, barking
Through great ashes.

Insect blossoms
Orgasming inflorescence
Of woodsing grubs.

A forest of holes
Cracking fissures skying
Hard open blue.

Wet trunks punking
Woodpeckering
Manure the floor.

Dry trunks dustify
Debarking and burning
Ashes to ashes.

A forest of holes
(                    )
Ashes to ashes.

KZ