This urge, wrestle, resurrection of dry sticks,
Cut stems struggling to put down feet,
What saint strained so much,
Rose on such lopped limbs to a new life?
I can hear, underground, that sucking and sobbing,
In my veins, in my bones I feel it --
The small waters seeping upward,
The tight grains parting at last.
When sprouts break out,
Slippery as fish,
I quail, lean to beginnings, sheath-wet.
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Comments1Just re-read Theodore Roethke's Cuttings after many years. His nature love and descriptions are unparalled. But was the author also describing lifes struggles and resurrections in this poem? I always wondered that when i was young and read it first time.