tears

And I'm talking all-consuming, streaming down the face, can't catch my breath tears. Had to happen eventually; I live in a spring of extremes right now. And I am, at this moment, extremely joyful and a bit sad, too. Sitting in the middle of extremes seems to require a few things. These are, in no particular order, lavender honey ice cream, a friend's back porch, and Hemingway.

Yesterday I started teaching A Farewell to Arms and noticed a line that is reversed in Roethke's "The Waking" : "Suddenly to care very much and to sleep to wake with it sometimes morning..."

Seems an appropriate enough time to include Roethke here. More on my love of Hemingway later...

"The Waking" by Theodore Roethke

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.