The Waking by Theodore Roethke (p. 44)

It is absolutely effective how Roethke wrote the first line in the poem – “I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.” The line caught my attention and urged me to read on, however confusing it was. The second line indeed began to give me a hint of what the poem might be about. The fate that Roethke mentioned in the poem was the inevitable death that he eventually had to face. Roethke did not mean that he was not afraid of death. But because death is inevitable for him and for everybody, Roethke accepts it as something that he “cannot fear.” Here, saying this, Roethke express his effort to take death as something natural – something that he must not worry about. Then he said, “I learn by going where I have to go.” With this, Roethke stated his determination to live life as he saw it. He would do things that he felt need to be done. He would go wherever necessary for him to lead the life he wanted. This ties back to the first confusing line, which is repeated many times throughout the poem. Thus, when Roethke said “I wake to sleep,” he meant the cycles of his days in life. With every waking, Roethke lived his day to the fullest, since he “take my waking slow.” Later in the poem, when he said, “Great Nature has another thing to do to you and me, so take the lively air, and lovely, learn by going where to go,” one can see that he was in a very positive mood. Nature has its disasters, so whenever one can, he should enjoy the moments of life. The metaphor of the lowly worm climbing the winding stair refers to hardships in life. Even the worm is still working its way up the stairs, why would men refuse trying to fight hardships and to learn from failures. In the last stanza, when Roethke said, "The shaking keeps me steady," he meant to point out that through troubles and difficulties, one would become more "steady" in his principles and directions in life.