Poem by Theodore Roethke

The Signals

Often I meet, on walking from a door,
A flash of objects never seen before.

As known particulars come wheeling by,
They dart across a corner of the eye.

They flicker faster than a blue-tailed swift,
Or when dark follows dark in lightning rift.

They slip between the fingers of my sight,
I cannot put my glance upon them tight.

Sometimes the blood is privileged to guess
The things the eye or hand cannot possess.

1. Child on Top of a Greenhouse
2. The Visitant
3. Journey into the Interior
4. The Saginaw Song
5. Big Wind

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