I can't stop reading Theodore Roethke today. His poem, Forcing House, resonates so much. A forcing house a place in which the growth of plants is artificially hastened. My life has definitely felt like a spiritual forcing house lately. With each physical setback, there has been a corresponding flowering of internal growth. Illness lays waste to the ego, softens the heart, and teaches a deep level of compassion if you are open to grow.
I am so grateful to be here and to be feeling so strong and so alive, more than I felt in a very long time. If it were not for the kindness of my family, the care of my doctor team, and the blessings of good fortune, I would not be here. It is the confluence of these things and the deep pulse of life, the greening within me that allows me to embrace my forcing house.
Forcing House
by Theodore Roethke
Vines tougher than wrists
And rubbery shoots,
Scums, mildews, smuts along stems,
Great cannas or delicate cyclamen tips,
All pulse with the knocking pipes
That drip with sweat,
Sweat and drip,
Swelling the roots with steam and stench,
Shooting up lime and dung and ground bones,-
Fifty summers in motion at once,
As the live heat bellows from pipes and pots.