The Lost Son
Dublin Core
Title
The Lost Son
Subject
[no text]
Description
Included here is the first part part of the poem. Other parts of the poem to be included later pending copyright permission.
Creator
[no text]
Source
[no text]
Publisher
[no text]
Date
[no text]
Contributor
[no text]
Rights
[no text]
Relation
[no text]
Format
[no text]
Language
[no text]
Type
[no text]
Identifier
[no text]
Coverage
[no text]
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
The Lost Son
1. The Flight
At Woodlawn I heard the dead cry:
I was lulled by the slamming of iron,
A slow drip over stones,
Toads brooding wells.
All the leaves stuck out their tongues;
I shook the softening chalk of my bones,
Saying,
Snail, snail, glister me forward,
Bird, soft-sigh me home,
Worm, be with me.
This is my hard time.
Fished in an old wound,
The soft pond of repose;
Nothing nibbled my line,
Not even the minnows came.
Sat in an empty house
Watching shadows crawl,
Scratching.
There was one fly.
Voice, come out of the silence.
Say something.
Appear in the form of a spider
Or a moth beating the curtain.
Tell me:
Which is the way I take;
Out of what door do I go,
Where and to whom?
Dark hollows said, lee to the wind,
The moon said, back of an eel,
The salt said, look by the sea,
Your tears are not enough praise,
You will find no comfort here,
In the kingdom of bang and blab.
Running lightly over spongy ground,
Past the pasture of flat stones,
The three elms,
The sheep strewn on a field,
Over a rickety bridge
Toward the quick-water, wrinkling and rippling.
Hunting along the river,
Down among the rubbish, the bug-riddled foliage,
By the muddy pond-edge, by the bog-holes,
By the shrunken lake, hunting, in the heat of summer.
The shape of a rat?
It's bigger than that.
It's less than a leg
And more than a nose,
Just under the water
It usually goes.
Is it soft like a mouse?
Can it wrinkle its nose?
Could it come in the house
On the tips of its toes?
Take the skin of a cat
And the back of an eel,
Then roll them in grease,--
That's the way it would feel.
It's sleek as an otter
With wide webby toes
Just under the water
It usually goes.
1. The Flight
At Woodlawn I heard the dead cry:
I was lulled by the slamming of iron,
A slow drip over stones,
Toads brooding wells.
All the leaves stuck out their tongues;
I shook the softening chalk of my bones,
Saying,
Snail, snail, glister me forward,
Bird, soft-sigh me home,
Worm, be with me.
This is my hard time.
Fished in an old wound,
The soft pond of repose;
Nothing nibbled my line,
Not even the minnows came.
Sat in an empty house
Watching shadows crawl,
Scratching.
There was one fly.
Voice, come out of the silence.
Say something.
Appear in the form of a spider
Or a moth beating the curtain.
Tell me:
Which is the way I take;
Out of what door do I go,
Where and to whom?
Dark hollows said, lee to the wind,
The moon said, back of an eel,
The salt said, look by the sea,
Your tears are not enough praise,
You will find no comfort here,
In the kingdom of bang and blab.
Running lightly over spongy ground,
Past the pasture of flat stones,
The three elms,
The sheep strewn on a field,
Over a rickety bridge
Toward the quick-water, wrinkling and rippling.
Hunting along the river,
Down among the rubbish, the bug-riddled foliage,
By the muddy pond-edge, by the bog-holes,
By the shrunken lake, hunting, in the heat of summer.
The shape of a rat?
It's bigger than that.
It's less than a leg
And more than a nose,
Just under the water
It usually goes.
Is it soft like a mouse?
Can it wrinkle its nose?
Could it come in the house
On the tips of its toes?
Take the skin of a cat
And the back of an eel,
Then roll them in grease,--
That's the way it would feel.
It's sleek as an otter
With wide webby toes
Just under the water
It usually goes.
Original Format
[no text]
Files
Citation
“The Lost Son,” The Lost Son: Theodore Roethke's Central Michigan Roots, accessed May 1, 2024, https://aparna1.omeka.net/items/show/21.